Long-time Plant Sale volunteer Ceil wrote in to tell us about her proven method for protecting her newly planted bulbs from roaming garden critters:

“Henry saw these in my newest flower bed a few weeks ago and said I should take a picture and send it to you.

“I use whatever sticks I find on the ground (and over the years I have way more than I need) and poke them around and among freshly planted bulbs (and other flowers that rabbits and squirrels like to eat) to protect the bulbs from being dug up and eaten by said r’s and sq’s. It discourages them and the method works!”

I asked Ceil if she removes the sticks in spring, or what, and she sent in this picture in response — the sticks are still there, and the blooming tulips and daffodils outshine them.

Here’s a preview of the sale! Look what’s waiting for you!

Above: A684 Brush-Cherry Topiary p.48

Above: A 681 Banana ‘Rowe Red’ p. 48

Above: Another amazing cart!

At a terrific talk given by Donald Mitchell, conservation biologist, Master Gardener, and hummingbird specialist from the University of Minnesota, I learned which flowers not only attract hummingbirds but also give them the most nectar.

Perennials

Coral Bells (Heuchera sanguinea P199 and others, p.10) The coral bells that are not red-flowered or that have been bred more for their fancy foliage than for their flowers tend to provide less nectar.

Bee Balm (Monarda didyma ‘Jacob Cline’ P062, p.8) Look for other red-blooming, mildew-resistant varieties.

Beardtongue (Penstemon barbatus ‘Scarlet Queen’ P055, p.7)

Native Wild Flowers

Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis N088, p.32)

Royal Catchfly (Silene regia N070, p.32)

Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis N023, p.30)

Annuals

Salvia (Salvia coccinea, Salvia splendens, Salvia guaranitica, p.46) As a rule, hummingbirds get more nectar from the salvias that are annuals to us here in Minnesota and salvias native to the Americas. The earlier-blooming salvias will be in bloom during our short summers and thus be more available to the hummingbirds.

Flowering Tobacco (Nicotiana langsdorfii, Nicotiana mutabilis, p.47)

Torch of Texas (Ipomopsis rubra, p.47)

Climbing Plants

Honeysuckle (Lonicera ‘Dropmore Scarlet’ and Lonicera sempervirens, p.38)

Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans, p.38)

Cardinal Climber (Ipomoea x multifida, p.36)

Glory Bower Vine (Eccremocarpus scaber, p.36)

Firecracker Vine (Mina lobata, p.36)

(Photos from Wikipedia)

New Zealand Flax, “grassy” but not really a grass, has beautiful stiff leaves almost like Iris leaves except they come in a variety of colors and often stripes. This is ‘Apricot Queen,’ shown with the flowers of an unknown Falling Stars (see three similar Crocosmia p. 41). Unless you bring it inside for the winter, ‘Apricot Queen’ will grow to about 24″ so it is a wonderful size for sunny containers and can be used instead of the more usual Spikes (Dracaena p. 46). (Phormium ‘Apricot Queen’ A 183 p. 42)

This yellow variegated Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa ‘Aureola’ G 030 p. 6) is one of the few grasses that will be happy in shade. 12″. Red Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata ‘Red Baron’ A 237 p. 42) needs full sun, where its leaves will become increasingly red all summer. 18″.
.

We did not at first order this annual Liberty Grass (Libertia ‘Goldfinger’ A 318 p. 44) for the sale, but when we visited the growers’ greenhouse ‘Goldfinger’ summoned us over for a closer look with its shiny gold, orange, and green variegation. Also “grassy but not really a grass.” If you wanted to plant it the way English gardeners do, you would pair it with shorter (not taller) flowers mingled in with it (not in front of it.) They like that “flowers hiding in the tall grass” look. 18″.

Some lucky plants have names that entice you to buy them: Baby Bunny Bellies, Fairy Foxglove, Bells of Ireland, Cupid’s Dart. Other plants, through no fault of their own, have less appealing names: Bloody Dock, Lungwort, Bitter Root, Viper’s Bugloss, and this year’s best worst name, Ratstripper.

Bloody Dock (Rumex)

Any plant name that contains words like false, weed, wort, snake, goat, bleeding, or dead, tends to be off-putting enough that, when we are putting the catalog together, we do try to choose a more attractive name if the plant has several common names. Which would you rather have in your garden: Mountain Death Camas or Elegant Camas? Sneezeweed or Helen’s Flower? Liver Balm or Fairy Foxglove?

Of course, when a name like Spiderwort is the most widely known common name, we use it, even if there’s a prettier but obscure name like Blue Jacket. (Thankfully, we don’t have to use another of Spiderwort’s common names: Snotweed!)

But perhaps you are a gardener who is not turned off by medicinal, anatomical, frank, or lurid common names, but who rather relishes them. Perhaps you enjoy knowing that “wort” has nothing to do with warts: it simply means “herb” or healing plant. A Lungwort, despite the way it sounds, is not a nasty disease symptom, but rather a plant that in folklore was thought to cure lung problems because the speckled leaves resemble a lung. And just look at how cute the plant actually is! All of the plants mentioned here are wonderful plants, beloved of gardeners.

So, my question is, would we be as fond of a rose if it was called, say, Thorny Blackspotleaf or Bleeding Pierce-flesh?

And my second question is, does anyone know how Ratstripper, a handsome evergreen groundcover, got its verminous name?

In the catalog:

P 037 Baby Bunny Bellies (Tradescantia) p. 7
A 056 Bells of Ireland (Moluccella laevis) p. 40
P 094 Bitter Root (Lewisia) p. 8
P 273 Bloody Dock (Rumex sanguineus) p. 12
P 250 Cupid’s Dart (Catananche caerula) p. 11
N 022 Elegant Camas (Zigadenus elegans) p. 30
P 274 Fairy Foxglove (Erinus alpinus) p. 12
P 335 Helen’s Flower (Helenium ‘Mardi Gras’) p. 14
P 474 Lungwort (Pulmonaria ‘Gaelic Magic’) p. 17
P 607 Ratstripper (Paxistima canbyi) p. 19
P 646 Spiderwort (Tradescantia ‘Sweet Kate’) p. 20
P 719 Viper’s Bugloss (Echium) p. 21

Nancy’s garden was written up by Marge Hols in the Saturday, August 18th issue of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. But you saw it here first (see her photos on our site)!

Go orange!

A while ago I wrote an article for the Friends School Plant Sale on gardening for birds. I still stand behind everything I said: plant fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, add a water feature, be messy, keep your cat indoors. But I remember at the time thinking that I was being a little short on specifics. What trees and shrubs? What kind of water setup? And which birds are we talking about anyway?

I recently stumbled across a book, Bird by Bird Gardening by Sally Roth (Rodale, 2006), that goes a long way (371 pages, in fact) toward answering those questions. (See the Rodale website for purchase information.)

Bird by Bird Gardening is fun, opinionated, and full of specifics. Sally’s basic premise is that you can tailor your garden to individual families of birds by understanding their habits and needs: food, water, shelter. She defines families both tightly (thrushes, vireos, woodpeckers) and loosely (large finches, small finches).

The bulk of the book is taken up by long chapters devoted to each of 19 individual families of birds. Each chapter includes habitat needs, dietary issues, feeder strategies, suggested plants (including named varieties), and even tentative garden design.

The 19 families generally are those that you would expect to find in back yards: smaller feeder-visiting birds that come and stay for a while. She does not, for example, include raptors, probably because raptor habits tend more toward feeding on the visitors than on the feed. (One exception: when I lived in Alaska, my nearest neighbors had an eagle feeder, a large piece of plywood raised high off the ground on which they placed slabs of old meat. This is not recommended locally.) Sally concentrates on appealing to birds that use the big four food groups: insects, seeds and nuts, fruits and berries, and nectar.

I have a pretty good garden for birds. My backyard bird list is approaching 100 species. I have mature trees, no grass, I never use pesticides, and I am not the neatest. As I write this in early March with 28 inches of snow on the ground, I see goldfinches, juncos, mourning doves, downy, hairy and red-bellied woodpeckers, a brown creeper and cardinals. But what I really, really want is a resident Carolina wren. I have nesting house wrens every summer, I see winter wrens on migration in most years, I will never have a sedge or a marsh wren (no sedge and no marsh)—but a Carolina wren is well within the range of possible.

Although they are generally considered to be eastern and southeastern birds, Carolina wrens are seen regularly in Rochester and along the Minnesota River valley, and a trio just showed up in a yard in Golden Valley. So I consulted the wren section of Bird by Bird Gardening, and I am going to make a few changes. I am going to plant a grape vine, some prickly pears, and a serviceberry. I am going to look hard at hollyhocks, Malva, Asclepias, and autumn flowering Clematis. I might try to get over my aversion to mealworms. I am going to put up a wren house, and I am never going to rake again. And I will let you know.

We can all make changes that make our yards more bird-friendly. Sally is opposed to naked fencing as “good for privacy but…bad for birds.” A fence that is covered with vines, though, is an asset for both; Sally advocates virgin’s bower, hops, grapes, honeysuckle, trumpet creeper, and wisteria. Royal ferns and serviceberries for chickadees; pussy willows, goldenrods and hibiscus for warblers; columbines and Falling Stars (Crocosmia) for hummingbirds: every plant I have mentioned is available at the plant sale.

This book contains an enormous amount of information, so if you love looking out your window and seeing a flash of something unfamiliar or if you just want to give back something to creatures from whom so much is being taken, grab a copy of Bird by Bird Gardening. As Sally says, “Gardening and bird feeding…have big effects on birds.” Let’s work to make our homes and our communities safe havens for birds.

Sidebar: Multipurpose Plants

Most of us don’t have a single bird family that we are interested in but, rather, garden for birds in general. Sally includes a list of “multipurpose plants,” ones that attract more than one family:

• Bayberry
• Blackberries
• Blueberries
• Cherries
• Dogwoods
• Elderberries
• Grapes
• Maples
• Pines
• Prickly pear
• Raspberries
• Sunflowers
• Willows
• Zinnias

or Why I am learning some scientific names for my plants…

1. Because I already have a head start.

Look at all the Latin names for plants I knew and knew how to pronounce without even trying! You probably know them too:

Asparagus • Aster • Astilbe • Begonia • Cactus • Canna • Chrysanthemum • Cosmos • Crocus • Delphinium • Eucalyptus • Fuchsia • Ginkgo • Hibiscus • Hosta • Hydrangea • Iris • Juniper • Magnolia • Petunia • Phlox • Rhododendron • Verbena • Vinca • Wisteria • Yucca • Zinnia

2. Because common names can cause confusion.

Real, old-fashioned common names like “Love-lies-bleeding” or “Jack in the Pulpit” or “Naked Ladies” are wonderful, but I found that common names can make trouble for gardeners. For instance, “Flowering Maple” is not a maple. “Butter and Eggs” could be a buttercup or a poppy or a pretty little yellow roadside weed. “Bluebell,” “Coneflower,” and “Ice Plant” all mean different plants to different people. And Lily-of-the-Valley, Daylily, Peruvian Lily, Torch Lily, and Lily of the Nile are all not Lilies at all.

The Latin name doesn’t matter if you simply want to buy a nice-looking plant, read its care label, and put it in your garden.  But I discovered that when I wanted to find, learn about or recommend a particular plant, knowing the botanical names really helped. Also, some of the flowers I was interested in are so uncommon or so newly discovered that they don’t even have common names although some plant catalogs are happy to invent some.

3. Because I found out a little about what a Latin name really is and what it could tell me.

Then the names started to seem a little less like weird-looking scientific gobbledygook. It was like knowing a secret code.

In the 18th century, Carl von Linne (who even Latinized his own name to “Linnaeus” ) pioneered the use of the two-name system for naming plants. The idea was to make an interest in plants easier for us ( not harder!) because each plant would have its own two-part name that was the same all over the world. The first part of the name, always capitalized, is for the genus such as Sanvitalia, the name for Creeping Zinnia (which is not a Zinnia….) There are lots of different Sanvitalias. The second part of the name, not capitalized, is for the species, which narrows it down to one particular kind of Sanvitalia. An example is the second part of Creeping Zinnia’s name, procumbens (meaning “falling forward” which is exactly what it does.)  Then, if the plant has been bred so that it is different enough from others in its species, it gets a third name too, a cultivar name (short for “cultivated variety,”) usually inside single quotations marks and capitalized. For example, one cultivar of Creeping Zinnia is ‘Aztec Gold.’ Cultivar names can be anything the plant breeder or plant breeder’s boss wants to enrich our lives with, such as the rose called ‘Tipsy Imperial Concubine’ or the Flowering Tobacco (Nicotiana) called ‘Only the Lonely.’

4. Because knowing Latin names can be useful, fun, and satisfying.

The meaning of the Latin name itself can tell you useful things about the plant. If a Latin name includes pumila or nana, for instance, then you know that this plant is the dwarf version. If you are interested in knowing more about what the names mean, see the Roots of Botanical Names page on the Garden Gate website.

Whether it is useful or not, many people enjoy decoding the names .  Isn’t it just more fun than actually helpful to know that the Latin name for the cute little English Lawn Daisy (what those English people have instead of dandelions), Bellis perennis, means…“pretty perennial”? Or that the African Daisy Osteospermum is from the Greek for “bone seed” because its seeds are so hard? Or that if part of a plant’s name is “odoratus” then some part of it smells? Or that Impatiens actually does mean “impatience” because its seedpods burst open when lightly touched? It can also simply be fun to say the entire Latin name of a plant, such as Ziziphora clinopodioides (Persian Wild Thyme) or Sporobolus heterolepsis (the grass Northern Dropseed.)

When my teenager was four years old and going through the dinosaur phase, he was possessed by knowing all the long, complicated names of more than a hundred dinosaurs. It was much more than fun for him. This knowledge clearly gave him a feeling of immense magical power over the giant beasts: “Ha! I know YOUR name!” It is true that knowing BOTH the common and Latin names of my flowers does give me a greater feeling of control over my garden that is beyond what is purely practical.

5. Because no ancient Roman guy in a toga is ever going to correct my use of a plant’s name or snicker at my pronunciation. 

I realize that this is an odd reason. But for people like me with “speaking a foreign language anxiety” (xenoglossophobia,) it helps to know that the Latin used in botanical Latin is not a real living language with native speakers to be confused and annoyed, but an artificial written language.

Many of the names are not even really Latin anyway. How could there be a real ancient Roman name for a South American or Japanese plant?  There are only a few real Latin names, such as Asarum which is the real Latin word for wild ginger. A “Latin” name for a plant is usually just a more recent Latinized version of a person’s name (Drummondii) or a place (canadensis from North America) or one characteristic of the plant ( maculata, meaning spotted or zebrinus meaning striped.)  Some of the worst Latin names to pronounce can’t really be blamed on “Latin,” such as Ligularia przewalskii, because the difficult second word is based on a Russian guy’s last name (sha-VAL-skee-eye.). And sometimes it’s a pseudo-Latin Greek word or a name from another language,  like Ginkgo  which is the Chinese word for…a ginkgo tree. In fact, what we commonly call the “Latin” name of a plant is such a tossed salad of different languages that the preferred term is “botanical name.”

6. Because even around a modern horticultural expert (not in a toga) there’s still no need to feel “pronunciation anxiety.”

There are several reasons for this. Some of these names are so ridiculous that even plant experts stumble over them and laugh. Coleus, for instance, is Solenostemon scutellarioides. Other names break the various rules of Latin pronunciation, for instance everybody says  Forsythia instead of “for – SIGH – thee-a” in honor of Mr. Forsythe. And still others cause disagreements among horticultural experts.  Is Heuchera  pronounced “HOY-ker-ah” or “HOO-ker-ah” or “HEW-ker-a”?  And is it “Cactuses” or “Cacti” ?  Is Clematis “KLEM-ah-tiss” or “klem-AT-iss” ? There are also some supposedly correct pronunciations that I have never once heard any plant expert use such as “FEWK-see-ah” for Fuchsia!   Some pronunciations have been grandfathered in and it seems too late to try to correct them. Allen Armitage advises us just to “fire away and try to get the number of syllables right.” 

How did I (mostly) get over the possible embarrassment of making a mistake with a Latin name in front of a more experienced gardener or plant expert? So far, I haven’t encountered even one serious know-it-all, only plant nerds trying to be helpful and tolerant. And if I did, I would remind myself that it is never dumb to be learning something new!

7. Because I discovered that there is help out there!
 
The Botanary section of Dave’s Garden allows you to search on most names you would encounter.

Fine Gardening magazine has a fine plant names pronunciation guide page where you can even click on a name and hear it said for you. 

I have looked at mind-boggling lists of the rules of botanical Latin pronunciation and finally gave up. There are a few rules of thumb that did seem helpful:

• Just sounding out each of the syllables is often easier than it looks at first.
• Consonants tend to be hard and vowels tend to be long.
• If the word is based on a person’s name, say the name as close as you can manage to the original person’s name and then add on the Latin ending (however, there are many exceptions, especially with older plant names.)
• If you have to guess where the emphasis is in the plant’s name, try the third to the last syllable, although it is often also on the second to the last syllable.
• An unfamiliar name will often sound like a name that you know, so that if you know AgaPANthus, you can figure out PlecTRANthus. You will find that English and American gardening sources sometimes disagree on emphasis.

8. Because there’s no law that I must learn every Latin name if I just want to use a few.

In fact, for most of us, it would just seem pretentious to do so. In England, even children’s books apparently use the scientific names of plants, but in the U.S. it does not seem at all strange for gardeners to use a mixture of common and Latin names. For me, it would be ridiculous to say Lycopersicon esculentum instead of “Tomato”  or even the shorter Alcea instead of “Hollyhock.”  I use whatever name is most familiar to me and to the person I’m talking with.

If you are the kind of gardener who reads gardening books and catalogs, goes to lectures or your garden club, watches gardening T.V. shows (even the bad ones!), and hangs out with other gardeners, you will just absorb the plant names, both common and Latin, that are usually used.

For instance, some plants do not have a genuine old-fashioned common name, but only a recently invented name. (Good luck trying to track down what a plant really is from a catalog photo labeled only “Tinkerbells” !) Such a name is simple English but cannot really be called a “common” name because it would not be familiar to most people, especially since I just made it up. So I found that it is useful to stick with the Latin names, even if they seem less friendly at first. Some plant names in this category would be:

Anemone • Caladium • Clivia • Coreopsis • Gazania • Gerbera • Lantana • Ligularia • Sedum • Plectranthus • Ageratum • Browalia • Caladium • Echeveria • Weigela • Veronica

Others plants do have a common name but, as far as I can tell, the Latin one is actually more widely used, such as Pachysandra instead of Japanese Spurge.  Here’s a short list of such names with their generally accepted pronunciations from the Fine Gardening pronunciation guide:

• Allium (AL-lee-um ) for Ornamental Onion
• Helenium (heh-LEEN-ee-um) for Sneezeweed
• Penstemon  (PEN-steh-mon) for Beardtongue
• Rudbeckia  (rud-BECK-ee-ah) for Black-Eyed Susan
• Crocosmia (krow-KOZ-mee-ah) for Falling Stars
• Carex (KARE-ecks) for Sedge
• Cleome (klee-OH-mee) for Spiderflower
• Euphorbia (yew-FOR-bee-ah) for Spurge
• Geum (JEE-um) for Avens
• Monarda (mo-NAR-dah) for Bee Balm
• Campanula (kam-PAN-yew-luh) for Bellflower
• Gaillardia (gay-LARD-ee-ah) for Blanket Flower
• Ajuga (ah-JEW-gah) for Bugleweed
• Nepeta (NEP-eh-tah) for Catmint
• Echinacea (eh-kih-NAY-shah) for Coneflower
• Verbascum (ver-BASS-kum) for Mullein
• Agapanthus (ag-ah-PAN-thus) for Lily of the Nile
• Osteospermum (oss-tee-oh-SPERM-um) for Sun or African Daisy
• Verbena bonariensis (ver-BEEN-ah  boh-nar-ee-EN-sis) for Brazilian Verbena
• Epimedium (eh-pih-MEE-dee-um) for Barrenwort
• Heuchera (HEW-ker-ah) for Coral Bells
• Alternanthera (all-ter-NAN-ther-ah) for Joseph’s Coat and its many relatives
• Eryngium (air-ING-ee-um) for Sea Holly or Rattlesnake Master
• Achillea (uh-KILL-ee-uh) for Yarrow
• Liatris (lee-AT-triss) for Blazing Star

Other plants with Latin names more common than their common names have more controversial pronunciations. I have avoided saying these for years! Here are the Fine Gardening versions followed by other versions that seem to be also accepted.

• Nicotiana (nih-koe-shee-AY-nah) (nih-ko-she-AH-nuh or ni-KO-she-AN-uh) for Flowering Tobacco
• Cuphea (KOO-fee-ah) (KYOO-fee-uh) for Bat Face
• Agastache (ag-ah-STACK-ee) (uh-GOSS-tuh-kee or uh-GAS-tuh-kee) for Hummingbird Mint or Hyssop
• Kniphofia (ny-FOE-fee-ah) (nip-HOFF-ee-uh or nip-HOH-fee-uh) for Red Hot Poker

The Friends School Plant Sale would love to hear your thoughts about using botanical Latin, your favorite examples of unpronounceable or interesting Latin names, or your experiences with pronunciation.

Happy 300th Birthday, Linnaeus!

Penelope Hobhouse: Color in Your Garden
Borders
Flower Gardens
Garden Style
Private Gardens of England
Six videos = The Art and Practice of Gardening

Christopher Lloyd: Flower Garden
Color for Adventurous Gardeners
Succession Planting
Meadows

Beth Chatto: Gravel Garden

Sarah Raven: The Bold and Brilliant Garden
The Cutting Garden

Nori & Sandra Pope: Color by Design

Noel Kingsbury: Designing Borders
Plants to Transform Your Garden

Thomas Hobbs: Shocking Beauty
The Jewel Box Garden

Pamela J. Harper: Color Echoes
Designing with Perennials

David Stuart: Classic Plant Combinations

Sydney Eddison: The Gardener’s Palette

Tricia Guild: On Color

Tony Lord: The Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations

Anna Pavord: Plant Partners

Marylyn Abbott: Gardening with Light and Color

Rosemary Verey: The Art of Planting

Mary Keen: Gardening with Color

Freya Martin: Creating Contrast with Dark Plants

Elisabeth Sheldon: The Flamboyant Garden

Gisela Keil: Fabulous Flowerbeds

Ann Lovejoy: Naturalistic Gardening

Karen Strohbeen’s videos = The Perennial Gardener

Guy Cooper & Gordon Taylor: The Curious Gardeners’ Six Elements of Design

Malcolm Hillier: Color Garden

Dominique Browning: The New Garden Paradise: Great Private Gardens of the World

Elsa Bakalar video = Portrait of a Gardener

Tell us about your successes and failures with plants you purchased at our sale over the years.

We would especially like to hear about unusual plants. Did you try the Marsh Helleborine, Epipactus palustrus, the Japanese Maple varieties we carried in 2006, or another plant that was new to you?

Did it survive the winter? Thrive and spread, or dwindle and die? Did it misbehave (become weedy and crowd out its neighbors)? Did we provide enough information its requirements?

We’d also like photographs of plants growing in our area.

Please let us know! Write to us at info@friendsschoolplantsale.com.

“I consider every plant hardy until I have killed it myself … at least three times.”
–Tony Avent, plant explorer and owner of Plant Delights Nursery Inc.