It almost seems that the most used word in every garden magazine, seed catalog or greenhouse advertisement is "new." I guess we are conditioned to want the new but have you ever wondered where all these new plants come from?

For centuries, plantsmen have scoured the earth looking for plants that could be added to their private collections or to the collections of a royal or wealthy patron. More recently this search has taken on a significant commercial significance.

Today's hot spot to search is China. The recent opening and the expanding commercial activity in that country, its vast size, and a location which matches ours in relation to the equator, combine to produce "finds" that find a place in our gardens.

A second source of new plants is traditional breeding programs. In simple terms, the flowers of one parent have their pollen removed and the pollen from the second parent is introduced. This is a long, slow process as it takes several generations to stabilize the result.

Last week I mentioned that my daughter, while working for a Chicago seed company, developed a new impatien. She returned to school in Florida in June 2000 and the plant will become readily available this spring.

If you are a fancier of daylilies, you are familiar with the triploids. They are the ones with the super large flowers. Here a chemical treatment is used to mutate the chromosomes to produce a new plant.

A fourth source of new plants comes from just watching our gardens. A lot of new plant selections are found in our gardens. Sometimes a seedling will show an interesting characteristic. Sometimes part of a plant will mutate with interesting result.

These changes frequently have to do with the plant size, bloom quality, flower color, foliage, or disease resistance.

The fifth and newest method comes from unraveling the genetic codes of the plants. Here, the researchers replace certain genes to change the characteristics of the plant. In agronomic crops they are frequently working to reduce the use of chemicals to fight weeds, disease and insects.

Currently this technology is beginning to make its way into ornamental flower research. Going back to my daughter. She spent the last four years trying to unravel the secrets of flower longevity. In nature, the plant doesn't give a hoot about how long the flower works. Nature just wants a flower to attract pollinating insects. Once that is done, the sooner the flower dies the quicker the plant can get to the important business of producing seeds. It is only we humans that enjoy the flowers for their beauty.

Her research found a way to reduce the production of the gas that causes flowers to die, thus lengthening the time we can enjoy them. It also would make the transport of many blooming flowers easier. That is a significant problem, as the greenhouse industry seems to be specializing into separate growers and sellers of plants.

New plants are coming from lots of places. The pace is accelerating. However, the process takes time, a lot of time. Often the garden writers focus on a plant or a process today that won't be noticed in the retail garden centers until next year or the next.