One of These Things Is Not Like the Other, But the Other One Is

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other,  But the Other One Is

      I once saw a Blue Jay tearing at a name tag which was wired to the trunk of one of my small plants. The attacker finally gave up, but I could see how the need for nest-building materials can cause these tags to wander. Being inedible doesn't help them survive. If I'm too lazy to attach them to a trunk or large branch, then just stick them into the mulch, I'm asking for the trouble with which nature will gleefully hammer me. I think that it's the “gleeful” part that really bugs me.

      I'm sensitive to the problem of naming errors as it is common for me to find a tag lying in the middle of the lawn, 20 yards from the actual plant. If several small plants in pots are missing their tags, then I have to guess, or just leave them as unknown. Last year, Joe Klimavicz gave me a lot of rejects from his hybridizing efforts. I named them 'A', 'B', 'C', etc. When squirrels and birds scattered the tags around the yard, the original letter names became lost forever. A minor loss.

      No level of plant expert or august institution is above having their plant names messed up. The late azalea and rhododendron expert Don Voss worked for years cleaning up mistakes and computerizing the database of the National Arboretum. He also found labeling errors at flower show contests. Some plants can't be identified by any experts, since so many are similar. Some are simply put into the trade without registration, for sale on the cheap. Some names are dismissively floated by the cognoscenti as “Walmart Red” and “Walmart White”. No way to really know their history.

At the sales table of a joint Rhododendron Society/Azalea Society convention I once found a plant with good looking flowers: strong red markings on a white background. Its name was listed as 'Cream Ruffles'. Clearly it wasn't “cream” colored and the border of the flower wasn't ruffled, but I liked it, so I bought it and tagged it 'Cream Ruffles Not'. Over the years I've collected several other 'Not' plants.

'Cream Ruffles Not' in foreground; May, 2015

      Continuing the confusion above, there are some “Like” plants. If I get an unnamed plant and it looks similar to another, I give it the “Like” title, as in “Like Girard's Crimson”. Some “Like” plants I like and some I don't like. If I don't like them they become give-aways visitors appreciate.

Today I walked across the street to watch a neighbor and his teenage son dig a hole to put a plant in. I looked at the plant and asked them what it was. The man didn't know. It was purchased that afternoon. I said that it was probably a holly, noting the deadly spines reaching from the leaves, desperate to stab my skin. Then, a few seconds later I pointed out the white on the leaves and said that it was probably a variegated holly. His curiosity peaked, the man went inside the house, checked the label they had torn off, and came back with the news that the plant was a “Manager's Special.” That settled that!

      One of long-time gardener Don Hyatt's regular stories is of the time, when young, that he found some cheap azaleas in a nursery marked 'Lebalon 1 , 'Lebalon 2', etc. and vowed to collect all of the Lebalon series. Sometime later it was revealed to him that the name “Lebalon” was “No Label” backwards and the nursery simply had no idea what they were!

      Every gardener's frustration is the plant with no ID, though it also may become a focus. Looking for one like it that is labeled is a sport of sorts. Finding someone who can point to one of your unknowns and say casually, “Of course, that's a ...” relieves a weight. The expert moves on as if the long-sought info is of no consequence, unaware that an ordinary day was transformed into a great day! A triumph over the squirrels and Blue Jays!