By CHARLES REYNOLDS, The Ledger
According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, widely used by educators and major corporations, my personality type is among the rarest, though you may have already guessed that. I bring up this topic because gardeners' personalities strongly influence the plants they're drawn to and the way they maintain them. Since my knowledge of psychology is nil, I'll confine my thoughts to observations made during four decades of gardening.
A shopper at the annual Master Gardeners Plant Sale at Bee Ridge Park she looks at a Mule Ear.
(Herald-Tribune archive / 2008)
And then there are the neat freaks: People who wash and vacuum their cars weekly and never appear in public with a single hair out of place. When such fastidious folks are confronted with certain plants, violent conflicts are the inevitable result. Weeping plants are sheared straight across the bottom, shrubs are sheared straight across the top and palms are "pruned up nice" -- as in butchered. Admittedly, these gardeners probably don't purchase the kinds of plants that set their teeth on edge. Perhaps the plants already existed on properties they bought, or were installed by landscapers who misread their persnickety clients' preferences.
There's another group of people I'll characterize as having a chip on their shoulder. They don't really like plants; in fact they resent them and their demands. These folks bow to convention by landscaping their property but maintain an antagonism towards plants.
One way such people manifest this animosity is by withholding water. I kid you not. I've seen them pay landscape installation companies large fees and then, not wanting to spend another dime, willfully and drastically neglect the new plantings.
Before I became enlightened and realized that people probably can't help their approach to gardening, I frequently muttered to myself. I still do it, of course -- just less often.
Charles Reynolds, a Winter Haven resident, is a member of the Garden Writers Association of America.
