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| Hosta 'Abba Dabba Doo' & Rosa 'Zephirine Druhin' 23 July 2020 |
Perhaps the one action that makes us human and may differentiate
us from the “lower” orders is that we have an urge to name things, animals and
fellow humans. It is as close as we can to play God.
This is particular the case in the world of living things as
put in modern order by Linnaeus.
In botany plants have been classified and then named by all
kinds of rules that are in effect. But these rules do not prevent humans from
feeling romantic, philosophic, humorous or whimsical in naming plants,
particularly when they are hybridizers or plant hunters.
Until recently the names of plants usually were the names of
people who may have first found these plants in the wild. An example would be Hosta fortunei named after plant finder
Robert Fortune (he who smuggled Chinese tea plants, Camellia sinensis out of China into India and the rest is history).
When these plants were grown in nurseries, some of them were named after wives,
offspring, musicians or actors (and actresses) of fame. Sometimes like in Rosa ‘Julia Child’ fame was accrued to a
cook (chef?).
In the hosta world many of the named cultivars are romantic
or poetic. Consider Hosta ‘August
Moon’. But I the late 90s one man, Tony Avent successfully broke that mould. He
began by demystifying plant hybridization by saying that he could do this while
sitting on his truck eating a MacDonald’s hamburger. He then introduced hostas with names like ‘Elvis
Lives’, ‘Bubba’(having a short and red neck) and then proceeded to make sure
his hosta would be the first in any hosta catalogue by calling one ‘Abba Dabba
Doo’.
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| Tony Avent |
He may not have been as original as he thought he was. In my
garden I have Rosa ‘Zephirine Drouhin’.
It is a lovely rose with no thorns and, yes, the first one in most rose catalogues
particularly if they list Old Roses or Bourbon Roses.
'Zephirine Drouhin' or
'Zéphirine Drouhin' is a Bourbon rose, noted for being thornless, created in
1868 by the French rose grower Bizot, supposed to have been named after the
wife of a rose enthusiast from Semur-en-Auxois (Côte-d'Or).
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| Rosa 'Zephirine Druhin' & Hosta fortunei 'Albopicta' 22 June 2020 |
When I say the rose in bloom today I could not resist! The
hosta leaf may not look like Abba Dabba Doo because in our deck garden it gets
little sun.