‘Trubs’ takes gardening jargon too far

Gardening is full of terms that are positively nonsensical to non-gardeners. I know this for two reasons: the looks I get in social settings when I respond to a gardening question with a little too much detail and the almost weekly questions I get from the editor of this column about why we say “pot up” or “pot on” when just “pot” would work just as well.
I embrace garden jargon if only because it’s an excellent test of whether the person you’re talking with will immediately excuse themselves from a conversation if you use the botanical name of a plant.
But the other day I came across a new garden term that even I cannot abide. Right there in one of the best garden magazines in the world — the British publication Gardens Illustrated — was an article about discovering “trubs.”
At first I thought perhaps they were talking about the long, shallow baskets often used by gardeners to collect flowers or vegetables known as trugs, but I was way off.
A “trub,” the magazine proclaimed, is a treelike shrub. I’m not opposed to portmanteaus, which have given us amazing words like “spork,” “smog” and “romcom,” all of which do an excellent job describing something different from what its base words mean.
But calling them “trubs” just confuses an already confusing situation, because we already have words for these plants: big shrubs and multistem trees. By most definitions, the difference between trees and shrubs generally comes down to height — 13 feet is the seemingly arbitrary maximum height for a shrub — and number of stems, with trees having a single trunk.
Functionally, none of these things make a difference in how you care for a plant, and the more time we spend on defining them, the less time there is to name some truly great plants that make excellent additions to the landscape.
The list must start with a pair of dogwoods: The native pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia), which is available in both single trunk or multistem form, grows to 15 to 25 feet tall and wide, has beautiful white flowers, bluish berries and lovely fall color with an interesting horizontal tiered habit.
Cornelian cherry dogwood (Cornus mas) is not native but grows in similar conditions to its American cousin and produces a proliferation of tiny, bright yellow flowers at about the same time Forsythia blooms. Its berries are a beautiful oblong red.
Then there are any number of stunning Viburnum species, many of which can grow to 20 feet or more and provide three-season interest.
Ninebark (Physocarpus), serviceberry (Amelanchier), sweetshrub (Calycanthus) and American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana) are just a few more excellent, not-too-tall plants that are worthwhile additions to the garden.
Depending on their form and, apparently, their height, they could be thought of as either trees or shrubs.
I say so long as you think about growing some of them, you should call them what you wish. Just please don’t call them “trubs.”
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