Please! No more new petunias and impatiens. We have enough red, pink, purple, yellow, orange, lavender, white varieties to fill a world of gardens. They’re nice. All of them. Enough already. They’re not what I need.

Right now I’m looking in my garden at some large clumps of 2-foot tall asters that are on the verge of opening into nice lavender star-shaped flowers. Delightful. But if I cast my gaze down toward the ground, I see the lower part of the stems already brown with dried leaves. Not delightful.

Browning along the lower stems affects many asters. If you’re planning to plant one of the really tall varieties, then you really need to plan also for what you will put in front of it to block out the ugly parts. But even the shorter ones are affected—exhibit # 1 being the ones in my yard.

So please all you plant breeding wizards out there. Put on your pointy Harry Potter hats and start breeding some asters that don’t brown out along their stems. Come on, you can do it. I have faith.

—Carolyn Ulrich