Katy's Garden

The weather has turned grey and rainy, definitely autumn is nearly - or already - upon us. May be this is why I started poring over autmn planted bulbs. Tulips, alliums, anemones, and all the rest. Snowdrops and daffodils I have in large numbers already, they cropped up by the hundres when digging the blue border and the exotic corner,and were moved to safer places. out of harms way (hopefully... but the with the garden in such a fluid state there are no real safe places).

I ended up ordering a collection of purple-black-mauve-white tulips for the purple border, and some alliums (Allium christoffii, and a. "Ivory Queen", all the real giants were too expensive) and came across a rather funny description in the Avon Bulbs catalogue:
Tulipa "Royal Virgin", fresh and white
Tulipa "Black Hero", tall dark and full bodied
That gave me a good laugh, it sounds like something from Barbara Cartland, and I just had to have them. I must plant them together and be ready for a thickening dramatic plot. May be "Romance" should be planted close by, along with her sisters "Emotion" and "Eternity", and I am sure there must be something out there named "Royal Wedding" (an oriental poppy perhaps?).

I am helpless when it comes to plant names. I know they are mostly only clever commercial strategies, and yet they get me every time. That must be why I so easily remember plant names. They charm me and they tell me stories, and I am costantly enraptured in their chatty magic.

There was a period where I listed plants for a "snow-garden", a garden where all plants had snowy and icy names. Vita Sackville-West made the idea of white garden fashionable, but there are so many white gardens, I wanted something with a further twist.
It is amazing how many things out there are called "Snow Queen" "Snow Bird" or "Snow White", but there are also some more unusual things, like "Snow Showers" (a wisteria) "April Snow" (a rhododendron), "Snow Flurry" "Snow Prince" and "Snow Wreath"(all azaleas) even a "Snow Thimble" (a foxglove). Nor was snow to be alone in this cold company. I was ready to include Lavatera "Ice Cool" and Brunnera "Jack Frost", rosa "Iceberg" and many many more. I had covered two whole pages of names. Of course choosing plants just for the name must be a bit daft, and the snow garden never came into being (but who knows), but I had much fun weaving it into my imagination.

So far apart from the Hydrangea quercifolia "Snowflake" and "Snowqueen" the snow garden is limited to one small and beautiful plant combination, Bergenia "Silberlicht" and Sedum "Frost Morn". Silver light on a frosty morning... a poem in the making. It would be worth planting them together just for the names.

I also liked the idea of a gothic garden, dark plants and dark names, Colocasia "Black Magic", anthriscus sylvestris "Ravenswing", tulip "Queen of Night", Iris "Superstition", Cotynus "Velvet Cloak", Aliceara "Dark Warrior", Canna "Black Knight"... and I could go on and on and on.
But some of these names are deceiving. Ceanothus "Snow flurries" is blue, and Zantedeschia "Black Magic" is yellow. Liars, liars! Even my beloved "Frost Morn" blooms pink, but there, the name refers to the variegation of the leaves.