PLANTSMANSHIP IS ONE of those terms thrown around so much that if gardeners typed rather than talked, the "P" would be worn right off the keys. Usually British men are held up as lofty examples, although since there are plenty of renowned women gardeners around the world I'm not sure why. "Plantswoman" is a term used in reverential tones as well, although I've never heard of "plantswomanship." We'll assume that's due to the cumbersome nature of the word rather than sexist thinking and accept the convention of "plantsmanship" for gardeners of both genders.

The reason I've been thinking about the concept of plantsmanship is that, after decades of gardening, maybe I'm beginning to understand it. When we first start planting, we're enamored of the garden's sensuousness and satisfactions, lured by the siren song of creating beauty. You bury a lump of bulb in the ground in November and come summer you have a 6-foot-tall wonder of perfumed lily. Plants burgeon, bloom and change, then do it all over again next year. We put in plant after plant just to see what might happen.

NOW IN BLOOM Pine trees are especially beautiful on autumn mornings, whether draped with mist-laden spider webs or aglow with translucent drops of dew. Pines can be far more useful than merely green backdrop, for many have colorful needles and grow slowly enough or stay small enough to work in containers or borders. Pinus sylvestris 'Gold Coin' (above) is a yellow-needled Scots pine that grows slowly to form a 6-foot mound; P. parviflora f. glauca is a Japanese white pine with a blue stripe down each needle.

The sight, scent and vitality of plants can be nearly overwhelming on both a visceral and intellectual level, and totally absorbing of our energies. We fall in love with clematis, roses, columbine, and every other showy thing we can find. I'm sure those practicing true plantsmanship retain all the wonder and excitement of that early whirl, tempered with knowledge, skill, exactitude and some small measure of self-restraint. Sometimes, maybe.

It's only as I've watched plants mature and thought about them endlessly that I've begun to focus on how best to grow each one. This means practicing selectivity, for not all plants are worth the work. I'm finding joy these days in caring more precisely for far fewer plants, paying close attention to each one. I hope I don't start talking to them, but that's a little bit how it feels, I have to admit.

How to make every plant perform to its utmost, to achieve its full potential for beauty and health? Perhaps plantsmanship means selecting the very best plants for the given conditions, then caring for them exquisitely. This is more than "right plant, right place" — a useful mantra for minimizing the use of resources like water and time. It's more a shift of focus beyond design and the effects that can be created with plants (not that this doesn't remain fascinating, too). In case this sounds too rigidly scientific, there's no doubt that the best plantsmen and plantswomen combine liberal doses of inspiration and intuition with the expertise cultivated over a lifetime of gardening.

I tracked Dan Hinkley down in China earlier this autumn to get his definition of the "P" word. "Plantsmanship is not a skill or a pastime; it is a life that one leads," Dan said by e-mail when he had a moment away from trekking in search of seed. "It is generally not chosen as much as it chooses you. There is no faking it. It combines a genuine awe with a non-perturbable curiosity. It all comes down to those two personality traits. You are always a student and always quite pleased about that."

This is a generous definition, emphasizing state of mind over proficiency. Famous British gardener Graham Stuart Thomas weighs in on the side of experience, perhaps in part because he published "The Garden Through the Year" in his 10th decade of life. He writes, "Gardening is really a progression; it's a never-finished art allied the whole time to the craft . . . both are needed together if the seasons are to be appreciated to the full."

Vancouver, B.C., nurseryman Thomas Hobbs sums up the perpetual fascination of the muse, with which anyone practicing plantsmanship must be intimately acquainted. "Instead of going to university, I let the plants teach me," he writes in "The Jewel Box Garden." "Observing their likes and dislikes gave me a career, a soulmate and a charmed life. Unknowingly, I allowed plants to enslave me as their spokesperson, caretaker and pimp."