High Noon at the Green Matters Coral

I've had this blog entry in my stored folder for a bit -- just too much going on to be able to sit down and reflect. Now that a bad head cold has caused me to slow down, I can finally do a bit of that...

I attended the Brookside Gardens annual Green Matters Symposium late last month. The overall topic of the conference was water management - rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavers, etc. Not surprisingly though, the topic of native plants came up almost immediately. The first speaker was from Georgia and may not have been aware of his audience, which was made up of mostly hardcore greenies who could have given his talk for him. He spoke on his region's recent drought years and its impact on the horticulture industry there (devastating). As an aside, he said that natives were overrated and did no better in surviving the drought conditions. I heard half the room bristle at that. A cold wind swept in. I thought I saw a tumbleweed roll through and the townspeople hustle to close their flapping shutters. Then he went on to endorse several hardier and better adapted varieties of plants from Asia that do better for him in the current Georgia drought conditions. It was all I could do to hold back the giggles as I saw the stiffened backs and tightly coiled body language around me. The man was about to be hung at high noon. Luckily, his talk ran overtime cutting the Q&A portion and moving most of the confrontations to the post-talk break period where they could harangue him one-on-one. The stranger was last seen pinned in a corner by three local "Native Nazis." I doubt he'll be coming back to town anytime soon.