Plants now rank a place among those cherished treasures of yesterday. Or they can be centuries old, important to the American garden during Thomas Jefferson's days and even earlier.
People now have a passion for plants with a past.
Some plants are fads of a time, such as the parlor ferns and Abutilons of the Victorian Era. In the Colonial period, cottage pinks and carnations appeared in every garden. Some plants are not well-known because they are troublesome, says Wesley. He cites the beautiful biennial canterbury bells. They don't reseed well, so you have to collect ripe seeds each summer and replant them in pots or flats and then plant them in the fall for next year's bloom.