Return of the Hopeful Consumer’s Accidental Neglect Trial Garden

Photo © Joe Szurszewski
Photography

The first box of plant samples arrived the first week of May. I pulled the little plant babies from the box one by one and unwrapped the paper protecting their tender leaves. Each one hinted at the kaleidoscope of color I dream will bloom in my garden, also known as the Hopeful Consumer’s Accidental Neglect (HoCAN) Trial Garden.

2024 was the first season of the HoCAN, and it was admittedly chaos. We just plunked plants where we could find space, as close to the recommended light and water needs as possible, and hoped for the best. This year, I intended to be more intentional. More professional and thoughtful. But the boxes kept coming, and the time allotted for thoughtfulness was quickly consumed.

Who was I fooling? If there were more thoughtful intentions, it wouldn’t be the HoCAN. The stress and panic of planting is kind of the point. As an overleveraged family of four with two school-aged and active kids, we desperately want to spend time in the garden. But gardening takes a back seat to kids’ school projects, family trips, grocery shopping, unexpected extra hours at work, soccer games … the list goes on and on. In that sense, the HoCAN represents a good subsection of suburban garden consumers and their gardens. The time to care for the landscape is vanishingly small, and the ambition is wildly oversized.

So, there is a bit of a plant traffic jam in our driveway. If I’m honest, we’re still slightly behind in getting the sunniest gardens clean and clear, even though we did put in some work on Mother’s Day. We’ve defaulted to containers for denser plantings. The urn by our door is full of petunias in a combo of necessity. And while I’d prefer to separate the genetics of various brands, instead, they are interplanted (don’t worry, I kept the tags, so I know who is who). We know where the New Guinea impatiens are going (beside the hellebore in the shade of a Taxus), and we’re planning on expanding the southeast bed (the driest, hottest, sunniest spot) to give a home to the huge variety of drought tolerant sun-lovers that have been sent this year. But it will take time.

I imagine it’s all a bit like your average suburban gardener who makes a trip to their IGC and loads up on annuals with hopes of sprucing up their environment, only to leave the flowers in their containers as they try to find the time to plant. Maybe it’s like that mom who goes all-in on the school plant sale fundraiser, only to realize that they need more space and labor for what they purchased. It could also be like that dad who buys flats and flats of plants from a big box, only to remember that he has to take the kids to soccer games all weekend.

Hope and accidental neglect. If the plants can take that, they can probably take anything.

But what builds that hope? Inspiring trends. Check out our coverage on the latest trends in this month's issue. And who enables that hope? Amazing grower retailers like Smith’s Gardentown, whom we profile in this issue's cover story. Finally, to help you not neglect your own crops, we have an in-depth Greenhouse Climate Control Research Report.

Will the HoCAN yield significant data in 2025? I’m not sure. I’ll keep you updated. I’m not sure, but I really hope it can.