Paper short abstract:

The social production of Western gardens obscures the underlying market nexus in favor of an aesthetic predicated upon ideals of individual creativity and a gift economy. Plant distribution is increasingly dominated by large-scale producers in ways that threaten these ideals and that gardeners seldom consider.

Paper long abstract:

The garden occupies a unique space in the Western imagination: a sequestered locale where ideals of aesthetic production, closeness to "nature," nurturance and the values of a gift economy explicitly prevail. Like an art collection, its commitments to accepted standards of design rest upon notions of the good and the beautiful. Plant marketers encourage gardeners to think of themselves as creative and individual. However, behind these discourses lies a world of commodity chains that constrain gardeners' choices of what to grow. The "green industry" refers to the entire plant supply process, from laboratory to grower, wholesaler, large and small retailer, and, finally, to the gardener as consumer. Plant marketing is big business and plants are commodities. Nonetheless, small nurseries rely upon personal, enduring connections with their customers. Money changes hands, but information, concern and expertise are freely offered as gifts. Transactions do little to challenge gardeners' sense of themselves as engaged in an enterprise divorced from the world of low-wage labor and social inequalities. Transactions at large garden centers and big box stores convey the opposite. There, the plant's commoditized aspects are impossible to ignore. While many gardeners shop there, they often apologize for doing so. This paper is based upon long-term research with gardeners and owners of small scale enterprises who speak resentfully about such developments as the "branding" of plant varieties, a marketing effort which some regard as dubiously ethical.