Taken from the Eclectic Gardener @ http://www.teachinggarden.org/
Written by Alan Hickman
A couple of weeks ago, one of the Teaching Garden volunteers was rummaging through a sell-off table at a local nursery when she came upon an intriguing looking gizmo. Originally priced at $5.99, it had been marked down to fifty cents so, being quite unable to resist such a bargain, she bought six of them!
The mystery object was a three-by-five-inch pressed aluminum plate with various slots, channels and holes punched in it. A heavy U-shaped wire clip was pushed into one slot in the middle and two long aluminum 'legs'slid up and down in channels, one at each end of the plate. The question was, what was this contraption supposed to do? If, as someone at the nursery had suggested, it was a plant label, it would have qualified for some sort of prize for over-engineering.
Knowing how I love useless garden gadgets, I was given one of the sextet. Back at he nursery I found the person who had originally brought the items in and the following story unfolded. A few years ago the catalogue of a local wholesale distributor listed the items as an end-of-line sell-off. There was no picture, just a general description. The pieces were cheap and there was a cemetery nearby so the nursery placed a small order. In due time the items arrived - no packaging, no instructions, just a bunch of pieces in a box.
Not surprisingly, the items hung on a display rack for a couple of seasons unsold; then, they were knocked down to $1.49 and finally, at fifty cents, they went. But what were they supposed to do? According to the catalogue description, the device was for hanging a wreath on a gravestone!
While the purpose is now known, just how the act of levitation was to be performed is still far from clear. Perhaps the legs have to be bent somehow to hook over the top of the stone, but what purpose do the wire clip and the holes and slots serve?
Although it turned out not to be strictly a gardening gadget, the hanger did demonstrate the first law of marketing: it doesn't matter what it is, if the price is low enough, someone will buy it.
As we slide ineluctably into the season of wretched excess, it is as well to remember the second law of marketing - it doesn't matter how expensive or how useless something is, if enough money is spent on promotion, people will buy it. My all-time favourite example of this principle is the 'Garden Weasel'. Whenever I see one of these marvels, I'm filled with admiration for the genius who dreamed it up. It is so busy and it tinkles so prettily when the little wheels go round, that I almost have to believe that, when applied to the soil, it actually does something useful. Of course, like copper bracelets and laertril, what the device did do was make a lot of money for the people who sold it. Today, in the dark recesses of garages across the continent, thousands of weasels have hibernated undisturbed for years on end.
The sad thing is that, even with our anti-marketing defenses cranked-up to code red, we can still be seduced into parting with our money. Last week I was browsing along some racks of bulbs - marked down to half-price of course - when I noticed a few packages of 'Siculum'. Now, I've never heard of Siculum, but there are lots of things I've never heard of. The name suggested something to do with Sicily, and the picture showed clumps of small pendulous pink, white and green, bells springing from the tops of naked green stems. Some sort of ornamental onion, I surmised. The package said five bulbs; but, when I looked, there were six healthy-looking bulbs the size of the end of my thumb. What more temptation was needed? I was looking for some miniature bulbs for the front of a new flowerbed so I bought the last four packages of the mysterious Siculum.
Back home, I soon discovered that the Royal Horticultural Society's dictionary of 60,000 plants had never heard of Siculum, nor had any other reference book. By now thoroughly intrigued, I typed Siculum into the Google search engine and up came Nectaroscordum siculum with a note that the plant was formerly classified in the genus Allium along with garlic and onions. A little more reading revealed that what the package described as '...small “Garden Gems'..'in fact will grow to 120 cm tall - so much for miniatures for the front of the border.
With billions of dollars being spent each year on marketing and advertising and untold millions spent on researching new weapons of mass seduction, ordinary folk stand very little chance in the marketplace. It's like driving a car. It doesn't matter how careful you are, if you are on the road for long enough, eventually you'll get a ticket for something.
As for my Sicilian garlic, I'll probably plant it at the Teaching Garden. Maybe Nectaroscordum siculum can be the start of a collection of ornamental species from the onion family.