Remember when there were, what, three or four choices for toothpaste? Crest, Colgate, Pepsodent--it was a BIG deal when Aim got released. Have you BEEN down the toothpaste aisle recently? Scary.

Are our teeth any cleaner? REALLY? I'll admit--glide dental floss was a revelation...but other than that...

I think you may be on to something Frankie!

melanie

Interesting question. I remember, oh, about thirty years ago or so, being happy as a clam with a few struggling petunias in a pot by the door. I didn't know that I had a lot of other options, there wasn't much of a selection in the plants out in front of Woolworth's, and I didn't know anything about nurseries or garden centers. Even if I did, I didn't have the money to spend.

More recently, I had some professional help in designing parts of my property, because the anxiety and stress I was experiencing in trying to figure it out for myself finally became overwhelming. I wanted it to be special, but didn't know how to get there. Once I had a plan in hand, there were no more impulse purchases, or walking around with a plant looking for someplace to plant it, only to realize I didn't have a good spot for it after all. I was on a mission, I knew what the goal was, and I could load up the truck with plants on the list and dig the planting holes with confidence.

Since then, I have learned more about the choices I had available to me, and started second-guessing some of the elements of those designs. Instead of stressing over it, I've come to realize that given the vast selection of plants and other materials available and all of the possible combinations and arrangements of those plants and materials, there is no such thing as a perfect landscape. And even if I do achieve something like perfection, my tastes may change in time, and with it my satisfaction with the design.

I think you're right. While we're lucky to live in a place that offers us so many options and the means to achieve many of our desires, taking it too seriously can make you nuts.

Too much choice as a motivator for people to seek out my design service is a good thing!

Complication is the problem with choices. Decision making over things we no little about. When it was Colgate and Crest without all the different varieties the decision was less complicated. The amount of knowledge needed to make the decision was minimal. Now you may know you like Crest, but which one - do I have sensitive gums or need whitening? I NEED SOME HELP!

Yeah, but even if I have a Personal Toothpaste Advisor, how do I know he's going to be able to understand my needs accurately? And even if he comes up with a comprehensive sampling plan, integrating a variety of choices over time, it still never addresses the fact that there are still toothpastes I'm going to miss out on. And what if I miss The One???

Which is why I'm learning Toothpaste Theory so I can figure it all out myself. Which for me is the journey and I love it. I want to know the Toothpaste Selection Concepts. That's my personality.

Which is what this boils down to. Some folks want a Toothpaste Advisor and are thrilled to get the help. Others, like me, chafe at the concept of help. Because it has to be my choice and I've gotta know all the parameters first. And so I'll never be done learning and this will be a lifelong process. And I'll throw out a lot of toothpaste and waste a lot of time. I don't care, it's my mouth and my bathroom counter.

Not that Laag isn't correct that there's a whole population out there who will gladly pay for Toothpaste Guidance!!! This surfeit of choice is an opportunity.

But Frankie's hit the nail on the head, imo. There is so much choice in everything that we cannot possibly understand it all and therefore every decision made is really a loss of all the ones that aren't. So part of us mourns the loss of what could have been rather than rejoices in the one that is. Or we resist making this decision and spend our lives in limbo. So we never get the satisfaction of being completely happy with our toothpaste.

Analysis paralysis, eh? Me? I brush with whatever's on sale--and then follow up with baking soda to get the coffee stains off my teeth...

This fall, thyroid willing and the creek don't rise, I'm goin to start on my side and back yard. Y'all will see some SERIOUS dithering...but I have confidence that it'll all work out.

melanie

Part of my point is how to get this into a design concept including its presence in interacting with posters. They (and I) often don't realize that the source of their frustration and unhappiness is the choice factor, and there could be a concept in which they might CONSCIOUSLY limit their choices by having faith, if you will, that that will lead to happiness. Like brushing your teeth!

It may be somewhat of a cycle of life--like material gains in general. You have to go through a phase of being excited and thrilled by choice and discovery and discover for yourself that at some point the thrill is leading nowhere.

I can see that cycle in posts in which at first there is this great enthusiasm over all the great possibilities (great forum! etc) and then when the reality hits that at some point decisions must be made and the forum won't necessarily make them, or there are different opinions....

Absolutely frankie, I think a lot of the "what should I plant here?" questions on the forum could really be read as, "please put a gun to my head and make me plant whatever you say because I am too tired of thinking about it all and never being able to come to a conclusion." Which is a feeling I totally understand.

Of couse the forums don't come equipped with guns (maybe the lawncare and tractor forums do - those scare me sometimes) so the OP gets annoyed because it seems everything is getting more complicated rather then less and people who have put time and effort into replying then feel annoyed that their good advice is ignored.

process over product= happiness

(I think).

Frankie, thank you for verbalizing some of the points I was trying to get across to myself, if not to others.

Should there be even more focus on constraints early in the design process and less on brainstorming . . .Â
[O HAPPY DAY! For people with ANALYSIS PARALYSIS (thank you, Melanie) yes, absolutely. ]

Â. . . how to MANAGE choice in the design process, and this is a subtle subtext that can't be appreciated by me, usually, plus other amateurs, and help-me posts. . . . Â

Â. . . and there could be a concept in which they might CONSCIOUSLY limit their choices by having faith . . . that that will lead to happiness [or satisfaction] . . .Â
[This alone is such a gem that IÂm going to tack it to the wall. ItÂs not just for gardening.]

Ink said in the Âconstraints thread, "If you want an example of how constraints turn into creative magic check back at Miss Rumphius's post about her display garden." Which after all is what I was asking for . . .an example.

And I nearly stumbled on it when I ventured to say, "One could say that in some cases the givens might dictate the whole design. Which COULD make it easier for the novice, but harder for the artist. Now there's something to think about."

Change that to "Âin some cases imposing constraints would pave the way to a successful design." And then just as food for thought consider how that could make it easier for the novice and yet harder for the artist.

 . . . make me plant whatever you say because I am too tired of thinking about it all and never being able to come to a conclusion. Says accordion.

Well, epiphany for me, thank you all even if you didnÂt get all the way through this.

P.S. Karin, re-reading the Chosen Constraints thread, I see that you really DID impose your own constraints (IÂm really getting tired of that word!) with "ugly plants, ugly pots" as your motto. Sorry!

I intend to blow this toothpaste analogy out of the water with the aid of that other thread that suggests that just because there are 17 different brands of toothpaste it doesn't mean that you have to try them all.
What is the purpose of cleaning your teeth? That's an easy one. What is the best method of maintaining that cleanliness? Brushing, right? What you need though to make it work really well is a substance made from sugar and peppermint that comes in a handy container. Right? or...
What is your garden for? Truly, when we consider mood as well as the dog and a husband with a John Deere this question is not as straightforward as brushing your teeth. If only we could stick to a simple question.

Ink, I think toothpaste has artificial flavor, not sugar, which would be a bit like mixing roundup with your foliar feed fertilizer.

Lovin it! By far, this is the best thread in a while.
As a lurker, I notice I have learned to temper myself when browsing through plants. From the posts here I've learned to ask Where and Why when something catches my fancy. Too many decisions? Definitely. My bad decisions tend to die so now I just save money with better decisions. (sometimes...hopefully)
Cara

Oh, and thank goodness for Listerine toothpaste!

When you come to a fork in the road, take it...
The best paradigm for decision making, in my opinion, is going with the 80-85% solution. Most times, you will never receive 100% of the information you think you need to make a decision. So if you start adjusting your decision-making a bit and realize that you can make an informed decision, you can feel much better about it. Some might think of this as "settling", but I disagree.
I agree with saypoint, there is no perfect landscape, and what you think is perfect this year, might not look so good to you in 3-5 years.
Next time I go to buy toothpaste, I'll just close my eyes and pull one off the shelf.

No matter how many different plants I may stumble across at a better well stocked nursery, I would never complain of having too many choices. It is obvious that not every plant choice will be under consideration based on personal taste and budget, and if the selection process weighs the environmental constraints and habitat preferences, many more possible choices will fall by the wayside.

I sometimes have the serendipitous chance to rework an older garden that I may have originally designed years earlier, and enjoy the chance to really make changes in plantings for a completely new look. In a smaller way, changing how you do seasonal plantings each year rather than simply repeating oneself helps keep the whole process fresh.

Personally I find myself drawn lately to designing gardens using only plants from climates similar to my own, or using plants that can only be grown well here. I feel this self imposed design constraint can result in a garden that feels like a unified whole even if the plants would never be seen growing together in nature, and ultimately helps create an urban landscape that is site responsive and ultimately becomes geographically and culturally identifiable with your region.

One such combination that is so typically northern Californian would include the ubiquitous white Calla lilies, California poppies, our native Ceanothus with its electric blue flowers, Birds of Paradise(Strelitzia) and Mexican Fan palms. The mix is eclectic, but is so reliable that it has become almost a default landscape in many neighborhoods around town. Anyone care to play along and name those plants that have created your area's cultivated non-native landscape, and would be greatly missed if no longer seen?

I wish my yard were large enough to experiment with choices. I prefer massing, to a degree, rather than collection, for the impact the practice has on the creation of form and definition of space. This leaves me, in my own landscape and garden, with fewer opportunities for variety, but I like that, to be honest. In my small space, too much variety leads to such a blending of color and texture that the whole is dissolved to an extent.

As a plant collector who's just about filled up her indoor and outdoor plant space, I had an epiphany this year about plant choice.

As usual, I spent many a winter's night poring over all the plant catalogs. Made lists of all the plants I really wanted. Figured out who had the best prices. Cut out the less-than-reputable mail order nurseries. Still had way too many choices and way too little money. In a fit of "analysis paralysis" (combined with a truly scary health care crisis in my family that is now happily concluded), I said SCREW IT! I'm not going to order anything and just take my chances that I can find a few of these elite varieties while making my rounds of the area garden centers.

This actually has been surprisingly fun. Every visit I will find at least one or two of my oddball choice plants, nice and big and healthy with no postage costs involved. It's a real thrill to find Planta uniqua 'Obscura' next to the run-of-the-mill plants.

Instead of being sad that I don't have the 100 varieties of cool new plants, I'm content that I found five of them in our little rinky dink town. A weird way to be content but it's working for me. Could one design a landscape this way? Probably not.

A separate observation - one's taste in design changes as one evolves/grows/ages/matures. The garden (or living room or fancy dress) that you like when you are 20 is not the same as the one you like at 30 or 40 or ... So it may be time to rethink some choices as you travel down the journey of life.

I really like what frankie said about "It may be somewhat of a cycle of life--like material gains in general. You have to go through a phase of being excited and thrilled by choice and discovery and discover for yourself that at some point the thrill is leading nowhere." When I was 20, I wanted to own everything. Now I have a houseful of STUFF and really would like to unload about 90% of it. Hopefully someday I'll get up the initiative (not gonna unload too many plants though. What I really need is to ditch most of the furniture and live in a large greenhouse with a clothes closet, a library, and a large pile of takeout menus!!)

Bahia is right that having more things to use is empowerment when you know how to use them. The problem is when those choices have to be made with things we know little about - whether tothpaste or plants for those who don't know much about how to use them.