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| Rosa 'Ketchup & Mustard' & Hosta 'Wheee!' 12 July 2025 |
My Rosemary, whose interest in gardening transferred to me (with some not so gentle pushing), taught me from the beginning to learn the proper botanical name of our plants. Because my first interest began with hostas I understood her. As a member of the American Hosta Society I found out that my fellow members were finicky and persnickety about using the correct nomenclature of their plants.
Another reason for using botanical names is that you are precise and if you use a common name confusions happen.
And so the Western Red Cedar in our former garden in my mind became a Thuja plicata. In botanical names that has to be written in italics. If the plant is a cultivar (usually because of human intervention and hybridizing) the name is not in italics and it is between single quotes.
What you see in the scan today is Hosta ‘Wheee!’ and Rosa ‘Ketchup & Mustard’. Those names are funny and don’t sound as complicated as the botanical name of a Douglas Fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii.
Rosemary was not alive to smile at the name of the two plants in this blog. What is interesting is that the hosta is the first plant (anywhere in the world) with an exclamation sign as part of its name. When I smell this rose somehow my imagination makes it seem like there is some Heinz in it.
Addendum: My friend Clarence Falstad, a member of the American Hosta Society who works for the very good Michigan nursery Walters Gardens and is in charge with patenting new plants has told me that Canada has rejected the name of Hosta 'Wheee!' because of its exclamation mark.