"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.

Early Plantings

David wants to know when I’m going to stop philosophizing and actually talk about the garden, so here we go.

Our lot is a vacation property, and as long time gardeners we were savvy enough to realize that we had to choose a plant that, once put into the ground, would have to hold its own.  In our area that means, drought tolerance, unappetizing to deer and other critters, and can survive against the natives.

Hmmm, what would fit the bill?  Our first thoughts turned to the Sempervivum family – commonly known as “Chickens and Hens” or "House leeks".  Cold hardy succulents, we thought they might be perfect for our first foray into gardening.  And they weren't a bad choice, by all means. At our local botanical greenhouse our favourite area is the cactus house. It is always fascinating to see the incredible array of weird and wonderful plants that nature has created to survive different environments.

Next step where to plant them?  We still had the problem of not having actual beds, and perhaps this shows how obsessive our need to make a garden was.  We were forced to find a hollow in the rocks that was filled with a thin soil (produced naturally over many years) and some grass or sedge growing in it, dig that out and plant something else there. And that’s what we did. 

I'm not sure you can even see where we planted. It's in the foreground. The cabin is in the background and you can see the firepit is the dark area on the right hand side and the pile of brush collected for the fire is on the left hand side.

Whilst the boys finished the cabins (I have to tell that story one day) I had the task of planting 4 semperviviums that we had purchased.  I don’t remember it taking long. I sort of surveyed the area, tried to find a place where I could dig out the soil with my trowel; pulled out all the grass, and mixed up a little potting soil with the existing soil (it didn’t need much) and bob’s your uncle.

This gives you some idea of what we are digging in to create our garden. The sempervivum is in that outcropping at the top.

 

These sempervivums were unnamed and we not such experts that we could say what they are, except the arachnodium.

Here at the base of the railway tie staircase, I dug out a small cavity between the rocks and planted. This one has survived over the years, mostly because it is sheltered I think.

And the fate of these chicks and hens?  Well, of course the day after, something had dug them up. And next year when we came up to visit, they were completely overgrown with native flora. In fact we had a hard time finding some of them.

Lesson # 6 Actually a bunch of lessons. Firstly, that in order to prevent a critter digging up your newly planted baby, you have to leave the area looking undisturbed. Secondly, that native soil contains a lot of seeds, that can stay viable for many years. Disturbing the soil seems to encourage propogation. So, if you use the native soil, be prepared for lots of weeds.  This is a lesson hard learned.