Three springs ago, Karl Lagerfeld offered to send me a box of his latest creations — for free. No catch; no stipulations: His haute fashions were mine, to treat however I pleased. If I wanted to wear a ballgown to shop at Redner’s, Karl didn’t mind in the least. It was better than hitting the lottery.

Okay, okay — it wasn’t Karl Lagerfeld; it was a conglomerate of plant propagators known as Proven Winners. And they weren’t giving me frocks and jackets — but the principle was the same. I’d get to plant the newest of the new in my garden every spring — for free! They’d send me annuals, perennials, shrubs — and all they asked was that I complete a brief online survey about my plants’ performance. (Such are the perks of writing a gardening column.)

I hit “Yes please” on the e-mail offer so quickly that I knocked over my coffee.

The box, when it arrived that first spring, was bigger than I’d dared imagine. I sliced it open and let out a long, happy sigh. Inside were row upon row of pots of diminutive greenery. I greedily paged through the Accompanying Planting Guide. The names were a little daunting: Argyranthemum? Physocarpus? But then I recognized some old friends — petunia, hydrangea — and felt more at ease. I grabbed my trowel and set in.

An hour later, I’d found room in my garden for 10 of my 48 Proven Winners. Another hour on, and I’d placed another eight. I wasn’t even halfway done, and every available inch of loam in my yard held a white-plastic-tagged start-up. Trouble was, my Proven Winners hadn’t arrived until Memorial Day, by which time I, impatient as I am, had already filled my beds with humbler offerings from The Home Depot. I went back to the Accompanying Planting Guide, hoping for inspiration. “Great for containers,” a number of descriptions said. So I dragged out the haphazard collection of pots and planters that always accumulates in my garage, planting them up with angelonia and arctotis.

I didn’t even make it past the A’s before I ran out of room.

I called my BGF (Best Gardening Friend) Ruth. “Want some plants?”

“Sure!” she said cheerily. “What kind?”

“All kinds. They’re from those test
garden people I told you about.”

“Cool,” said Ruth, who’d been very impressed by my becoming a Trial Gardener. Now she would be a Trial Gardener, too.

Ruth’s yard is much bigger than mine; she took a lot of plants. But there were still leftovers, which I gave to my neighbor Marcia. She was also excited. I was somewhat less so, since I now, in order to feel right about taking all those free plants, had to keep track of how they performed in three yards, not one.

And I was a little ticked off at Proven Winners. My box of plants was awfully light on some stuff that I really craved. The Accompanying Planting Guide listed four kinds of phlox. I love phlox. I didn’t get any phlox. I got four kinds of something called calibrachoa, though.

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