North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[list@ginda.us]

On May 13, 2006, at 12:32 PM, sherwindu wrote:

> My neighbors were looking for a quick solution to give them a  
> privacy and noise
> screen for their backyard.  They found something called 'Tall  
> Hedge' in Miller's
> catalog . . . nowhere in the ad did they use the description  
> Buckthorn.
> . . .  Why is Miller selling this stuff and keeping it a big  
> secret?  This goes hand in hand with their policy of not telling  
> people what rootstocks their fruit trees are planted on.  They  
> survive on deception of the public, taking advantage of people who  
> don't know
> better.

I've found that a number of legitimate nurseries sell plants that are  
pests at least somewhere in the US, including bittersweet, Norway  
Maple, purple loosestrife . . . the list goes on and on.   
Massachusetts just banned the sale of about 20 invasive aliens, and  
all of them are readily found in trade.

Usually nurseries even say what it is.  Anything that's described as  
growing extremely quickly, having no pests, etc., is likely to be  
problematic somewhere.  "Tall hedge" sounds like a tip-off of an  
invasive plant to me.  My guess is they didn't call it "buckthorn"  
because of the word "thorn", not because people are actively avoiding  
buckthorn for its invasiveness.  My guess is also that if you called  
Miller and asked "what species is that 'tall hedge'?" they would  
happily tell you, just as they told me what rootstocks they had under  
each apple variety.  They aren't marketing to the specialist, but to  
the casual grower, who doesn't know from rootstocks and has never  
thought about invasive aliens, at least, not botanical ones.

I'm not a huge Miller fan - they sent me mislabeled currants, and  
they sent my uncle a different pear than what he purchased.  On the  
other hand, their plants are consistently healthy and usually are as  
advertised.  They are just a large, imperfect nursery.

Ginda