Viewing post #1300058 by RickCorey

RoseBlush1 said:...
I learned about roses from a scientific point of view and have studied them for decades. I have worked with them in public gardens, nurseries and other people's gardens, but never really had a garden of my own until I bought this house in '04.
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I have read a lot about gardening and understand a lot of gardening theory, but there is no substitute for hands on experience or having someone show you how to do things in the garden. I am quite certain I do not know how to work in the garden efficiently and am often working too hard. I just can't seem to get the work done.
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Since you have both kinds of knowledge now, I hope quoting this won't offend you. But I think about this proverb almost every time I read a question and answers here:

Ask the experienced rather than the learned.
Anonymous Arabic Proverb

I think that science is great at accumulating ABSTRACT knowledge that CAN be passed along in books. But not only is Science not Gardening, it is not even Engineering. Abstract learning talks about how things work and why they work that way. "Practicality" is not interesting to scientists. (If it were, they would be engineers.)

Engineers and gardeners want to know how to get the chores done most easily and cheaply, and still get the desired results.

You know you asked the wrong person if you want to get rid of those holes in your leaves, and his answer starts: "Consider a spherical aphid on a frictionless leaf ..."