"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." William Shakespeare.

Actually names are very important, especially the names of plants.  And plants are really special, as they can have more than one name: the common name or nickname, and the scientific name, which is Latin, hard to pronounce, impossible to spell and usually written in italics.  (Don’t worry, I’m going to spare you the taxonomy lesson, but I promise I will get to it soon!)

It is however, really important to know the scientific name of a plant.  How can you covet a plant properly if you don’t even know its name?  Ironically, in all our visits to gardens over the years, we seldom found one that consistently had labels on the plants.  And, a little secret, if you happen to be doing a garden tour and want to know if that proud owner is actually a gardener, or has just paid someone to do it for them, ask the name of a plant. A true gardener will know what it is, because it was probably chosen with care.

Plants are usually labeled in nurseries and garden centres, and they can be mislabeled. (How easy is it for the tag to fall out of the pot and some well meaning person put it back … in the wrong pot!), and sometimes in the fall you can get a bargain on a plant that has lost its label. 

If you want to find really good examples of plant labeling, you will have to go to a public gardens, green house or arboretum.  They consistently label their plants and they often do it well. It’s a good thing they do, as they are the main source of our knowledge and inspiration.

Montreal Botanical Garden. This is a superb example of plant tagging. At the bottom we have a metal inventory tag. There are 2 numbers on the top. I think the first is an inventory number and the second the year of planting. It is followed by the scientific name of the plant. The tag is probably made from aluminum which is stamped. This tag will last forever! At the top we have the specimen label which has the common name (in English and French), followed by the scientific name and the native habitat.

Why don’t more people label their plants?  Let’s not get into a philosophical discussion on motivation here, but look, instead, at practicalities.  There aren’t a lot of alternatives on the market.  Here are a few choices.

Popsicle sticks and a Sharpie (or substitute any kind of cheap flat surface-wood, plastic, and marking implement)

Pros: Cheap. Practical. Easy to do.

Cons: Looks cheap. Wood rots. Writing can come off. Plastic gets brittle and breaks. Stick can get lost.

Conclusion:  Probably only good for short term use. Seedlings, annuals, or vegetables.

Scotts Lavender Farm. Cobourg. This is a "high-end" example of the popsicle stick. Very lovely. I'm not very artistic, but I might be inspired to give it a try!

This is a very, very cheap label. Just a bit of plastic marked with pencil. It's probably ok for the pot, but I think we need to replace this soon, before we lose it and can't identify the plant!

The label that came with the plant.

Pros:  Doesn’t cost anything. Doesn’t require any effort.

Cons: Takes up a lot of room. Not all plants come with nice labels.  The label then can’t be used to catalogue your plant.  You can’t add any information, like date of purchase.

Conclusion: An adequate solution, but not perfect.

This is a perfect example of sloppy labeling.  I have the label for the sempervivum in the pot above. But I don't know which plant it belongs to. Part of the problem is we bought many sempervivums over the years and they change so much depending on their age and the season, that we can't match the plant with the label now. That'll teach us.  The stone crop didn't make it through the first winter. But we still have the label!

Metal Window blinds.

Pros: Environmentally friendly if using recycled blinds. Can be written on or have labels stuck on.

Cons:  Space isn’t really very large and you have to get waterproof labels.

Conclusion:  For smaller plants it’s probably a very good solution, but they’d look lost under a tree.

This lovely little alpine is from Judy Wall's Nursery - Rock Wall Gardens in Perth, Ontario. She uses recycled blinds to label her plants.

Recycled aluminum pop cans. (Apparently you can cut them up and use a pointy stick to engrave on them!)

Pros: Cheap, environmentally friendly.

Cons:  Sucks if you don’t drink pop! But you can always raid a recycling bin. Not sure how practical they are as I’ve not tried it.

Conclusion: It may be worth a try. Heck, its recycling… if it doesn’t work you can’t really lose!

Purchased labels.

Pros:  Look professional. Last a long time. Come in lots of different sizes and materials, copper, aluminum, ceramic, etc.

Cons:  They can be expensive.

Conclusion:  Not a lot of selection out there.

Below are a  selection of lovely plant markers from Lee Valley Tools.

Large Aluminium markers with lots of room to write on. 

Plastic labels with copper or aluminum insets.



Copper tags. These are truly enviable, but copper's so valuable I'd be worried that someone might steal them for their scrap value



We have decided we are going to attempt to label our plants.  But you’ll have to stay tuned to see what we decided to do.

Announcing the Birth of ... A New Blog

Well, sometimes I think I might well be stark raving mad. 

Perhaps I just have a good dose of blogging fever.  I'm very pleased to announce I have started a new blog - lookafteryourpennies.blogspot.com - about personal finance, and although my friends who aren't from Canada, may shake their heads with disbelief over the extraordinary complexities of the Canadian tax system, they may find solace in the fact that it is just as incomprehensible to most Canadians.

Do take a look and please comment. I have set up the comment box so you can post as "anonymous".

If a tree falls in the forest … Part 2. Why does it fall?

I once had this very naïve idea that I would count the trees on our lot. Well, that was a very short lived idea.  

We have a lot of trees – probably in the thousands.  Here’s a few examples:

 

Eastern White Pine, (Pinus strobus)

White and Red Oak, (Quercus alba and rubra),

White or Red Ash (Fraxinus americana or pennsylvanica)

Iron Wood (Ostrya virginiana)

Sumac (Rhus typhina)

Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera)

Eastern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis)

And then there are the Maples.  

Red maple (Acer rubra)

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum)

The maples are very special trees. It’s because of the maples that we have such wonderful vibrant red and orange fall colours here in the east of Canada (and of course the United States).   

Killarney Provincial Park

Japanese Maples have some of the most spectacular fall colour. This is an Acer Japonica Aconitifolium taken at the Montreal Botanical Gardens (Spoiler:  we actual have this tree and it will feature in a future blogpost)

Maples do not occur naturally on the west coast and so the fall colour is limited to yellow hues.

Fall colour in Cariboo, BC. Apparently these are larches.

David will probably admonish me if I launch into another chemistry lesson now, so we’ll leave the investigation of why leaves change colour and drop for another post, and go back to the garden.

Right, where was I? Yes, we have lots of trees, deciduous and evergreen, alive and dead. There are many reasons why trees die, and I’m not sure why some of our trees have died (especially some of the huge oaks which should have long life spans).  But dead trees are not necessarily a bad thing (unless, of course, you’ve just paid a tidy sum for that “must have” tree which is, however, borderline in your zone, and didn’t make it through the winter -serves you right!). They form incredible micro environments that provide habitats for all manner of fauna and flora. 

Some of our dead trees are dead because the beaver has cut them down. These are obvious as the tell tale pencil-point shaped cuts are evident on the remaining trunk.  

I wish I had taken this picture. Credit goes to "Howstuffworks.com"

Such was the fate of a beautiful old Paper birch that lived right on the shore near the bridge to the large island.  

Birches do best when their feet are wet. That’s why you often see them on the edges of water courses and in swampy areas.  This particular venerable tree (venerable for a Birch which are short lived trees) had been gnawed by a beaver many years ago, but for some reason it had never fallen. Perhaps it was just too stubborn to know when to lie down and quit.

I’m sorry I don’t have a better picture, of this tree, and although you can’t see the beaver’s work, you can see how it is leaning, and how it’s still alive despite a grievous injury.

To be continued …

Flowers that bloom in the winter are always welcome

I love Amaryllis.  

I know, I know, they are big, blowsy, unsubtle flowers, but I still love them. I love them because they are so big and they really cheer you up when the nights are long, and flowers are but a memory of warmer days when you don’t have to put on your coat and boots to leave the house.

The Amaryllis that is commonly grown as an indoor flowering plant is actually a Hippeastrum – a member of the Amaryllidaceae family - a large genus of ornamental bulbs which are native to South and Central America and the Caribbean.  Strictly speaking, Amaryllis refers to a smaller genus of flowering bulbs from South Africa, which grow outside in the ground. Things got very mixed up and now "Amaryllis" has become the common name for the Hippeastrum – and the common name for the Amaryllis is “Belladonna Lilly” or “Naked Lady”.  It’s all very confusing, and we may have to have a lesson in taxonomy, but that’s for another day.

South African Amaryllis growing in California (Thanks to Wikipedia)

The two flowers share very common attributes though. They both are flowering ornamental bulbs (which means don’t eat them) and the flower (or flowers - as there is often between 2 and 15 flowers on a stem) usually appears first on a long stem (spike, or scape), followed by the leaves once the flower has died. (As a fascinating aside, the Dutch growers produce Hippeastrum where the flower spike preceeds the leaves, and the South African growers produce Hippeastrum where the leaves coincide with the flower spike production - a wonderful clue as to the bulb’s provenance). The leaves then fuel the bulb to make next year’s blooms. The flower spike can be very long (as much as 3 feet) and sometimes the flowers are so heavy the spike will keel over. I’m sure you’ve seen Hippeastrum that need a good staking.  You can see where the common name “Naked Lady” came from.  I have a very good gardening friend who likens them to strippers on a pole. I can see what she means, especially if you don’t grow something else in the pot with them to disguise their nakedness.

I love buying the huge, heavy bulbs in the Fall. If you are lucky, you will get what you think you bought, but often you get a surprise. Even from the boxed sets that come complete with pot and soil. Most people who buy them this way don’t really care what they get, or even know if it’s the wrong variety.  How did I know that the beautiful white Hippestrum that my son bought me for my birthday wasn’t "Apple Blossom"?   

"Apple Blossom". One of my favorite varieties and one of the few Hippestrum that is scented.

Well the first clue was "Apple Blossom" is a lovely subtle pink and secondly, "Apple Blossom" is scented, (it is one of the few that actually produce a scent) and this one was neither pink nor scented (I think it was "Picotee", so I've included a picture).

Picotee

And this year?  I bought 2 Hippeastrum from the Montreal Botanical Gardens in October. They were not varieties that I was familiar with.  The first variety was named "Gervase" and the second "Black Pearl". The labels were tied to the bulbs.  Just in time for Christmas, the first of the 2 bloomed. And what a surprise, it was neither "Gervase" nor "Black Pearl", but "Monaco". 

"Monaco". White and pale green throat forms a star in the centre of a red bloom. Stamens are also red. No Scent

I’m not displeased though. It’s a really beautiful bloom. The second Hippestrum has just poked its flower-head out and I’m waiting with bated breath to see what this one will be.  I'll let you know.

Note:  Thanks to a very, very good Wikipedia article which taught me the difference between Amaryllis and Hippestrum.