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
The catalog has ARRIVED, and it has also been uploaded to the site’s 
Last year I grew the inedible, just-for-fun Nipple Fruit (Solanum mammosum) and was pleased that the unusual and knobby yellow fruits kept everybody guessing what they were: Eggplant? Tomato? Squash? The plant itself is large (48 to 60 inches tall) and seemed to need either support or pruning because the fruit is rather heavy. It’s really not too soon to be thinking about Halloween! 
Another strange plant that we are selling again this year is a 10-foot vine charmingly called Love-in-a-Puff because of its balloon-like seed pods which contain heart-shaped seeds (hence its Latin name Cardiospermum.) An annual vine with attractive foliage and cute white flowers, Love-in-a-Puff would love to cover any chain-link fence for you.
It is hard to beat Lion’s Ears (Leonotis) for quirky personality. It is a tall, square-stemmed, aromatic annual whose flowers are fascinating at every stage of their development, as their curving orange tubes sprout out of spiny globes. Last summer, I was constantly asked the plant’s name. Kids loved it. Even now, almost a year later, gardeners and neighbors are still talking to me about this one plant. Now that I know that Leonotis is not only a freaky, fun plant but is an exceptionally easy, ever-blooming plant, I plan to buy at least three at the sale (the photo shows what just one little plant quickly turns into!)
If you want to grow a flower that is even more prickly, and perennial, try one of our Globe Thistles (Echinops) this summer. We have a brand new 24-inch steely-blue one called ‘Baby Globes,’ a medium-sized 24- to 48-inch dark blue one called Echinops ritro, and a giant 60- to 72-inch silvery white one called ‘Arctic Glow.’ I rather like ‘Arctic Glow,’ both because monster size tends to increase a plant’s “strangeness factor” and because its colors remind me of an unusual and appealing color-themed garden I saw last summer: silver and various shades of red and pink.
These unusual fuzzy orange flowers called Kangaroo Paws (Anigozanthos) are from Australia, a country that seems to specialize in seriously strange plants, more of which are becoming available to American gardeners every year. This year we will also be selling a red variety — let us know if you like them, because next year we could order them in pink, yellow, green or bi-colored. These Kangaroo Paws are 24 inches tall, just the right size to create an impact in a container, but we could offer ones twice that height if our customers are interested.
Finally, a strange plant actually named ‘Dr Seuss’! It is an Angel’s Trumpet (Brugmansia) with huge, fragrant yellow-orange blooms, similar to the Brugmansia shown here and newly available at the sale in a gallon container. This tropical tree can be brought inside for the winter — I know this is true because one of my neighbors has a small forest of them in pots in his front yard! There will also be a new peach-colored Angel’s Trumpet.
