Stellaaaa!!!

When you talk about Stella most people will recall Marlon Brando wailing in Street Car Named Desire (thanks Sergei). Of course people in the green industry will think of the ubiquitous Stella D'Oro daylily. I recently wrote an article for Today's Garden Center titled the Stella D'Oro factor... etc. In the article I argued plant sales are impacted by... well, plant sales. The more people see it, the more people buy it, so more people see it... rinse and repeat.
These days you see Stella D'Oro everywhere from the mass planting in front of the 'Welcome to Our Town' sign to the desolation of the McDonald's parking lot. It is in just about every tragic front lawn perennial border and is sold by the truckloads at the local Home Depot or Lowes. People like what they see and they see a lot of Stella.
But now it is like that stupid pop song that you can't get out of your head. It is driving me crazy. Imagine hearing the Bangle's 'Just another manic monday...' over and over and over again. The only thing that could possibly be worse is the 'Knock-Out' rose. Worse yet is when you see them together... and you see that alot.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for plants that sell well and people that are happy with hemerocallis. It is just that it has become a second tier commodity that has become over exposed. It is the David Hasslehof effect. It is tolerable at times, but sometimes... Won't it just go away?
So now I just play a game of 'I Spy' all the time pointing out the KO and the SDO. I was thinking of creating some sort of Internet virus where people would submit photos of all the Stella roaming around their town. There would probably be millions! No thanks. (Actually there are already 7480 Stella pics on a google image search).
Ok, so hopefully I got that out of my system. I have to go dead-head the Stella D'Oro I have planted in my backyard... just a few yards from, well, you guessed it... the 'Knock-Out' rose.