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.
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| '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!
