Azalea Artists

GARDENERS who have been at it for 60 or more years have a plant perspective that allows them to see that the varieties favored by farmers, the general public and professional growers change continually. The metamorphosis is sometimes dramatic, often incremental, but always inexorable.

By and large, unheralded, persistent plant breeders and selectors have relentlessly worked to change our expectations for fruits and vegetables as well as for flowers and blossoming trees. They do this at well-funded commercial or government research settings, universities, orchards and fields. Sometimes “amateurs” (who are anything but) just quietly toil away in their back-yard garden plots with their pollinating brushes and paper bags to create or uncover something new. They may even get lucky and, thanks to great observational powers, discover a sport, a single-branch genetic mutation that gives rise to desirable fruit or flower characteristics that can be then rooted and replicated.

It takes special people to develop new plants, people who have much more patience than God generally doles out, since the fruits of their labor are often non-existent, below expectation, indefinite or deceptive. Adding to the challenge is the simple fact that it can take a third of a lifetime (or longer) to bring forth, evaluate and propagate many new findings.

I still marvel at seedless watermelons and grapes that my children do not believe didn’t exist when I was a