Do you know the names of the plants in your garden?<\/p>\n
Many gardeners don\u2019t care about plant names, but knowing the names of those in your garden can be helpful.<\/p>\n
The common names for plants are useful in the same way that all names are useful: they identify a particular person, place or thing: you can identify and refer to each plant with accuracy. Rather than saying \u201cthat plant with small red blossoms and fancy leaves by the birdbath,\u201d you can say, \u201cthe geranium by the birdbath.\u201d (Another common name for the geranium is \u201cstork\u2019s bill,\u201d referring to the shape of the seed.)<\/p>\n
More precisely, you could use the plant\u2019s botanical name: \u201cthe Pelargonium sanguineum by the birdbath,\u201d or, in the case of a hybrid, \u201cthe Pelargonium \u2018Rozanne\u2019 by the birdbath.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advanced info: the plant commonly called a geranium is really a member of the genus Pelargonium. The true geranium, also called a \u201chardy geranium,\u201d is a member of the genus Geranium.<\/p>\n
When a friend admires a blossom and asks, \u201c\u201cWhat plant is that?\u201d and you know it only as \u201cthat small plant with small red blossoms and fancy leaves,\u201d you can say, apologetically, \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d or defiantly, \u201cThe name doesn\u2019t matter, I only care that it adds color to my garden.\u201d Either response won\u2019t satisfy you or your friend.<\/p>\n
Once you have identified a plant\u2019s botanical name, however, you identify the plant for your friend, look up cultivation advice on the Internet, find in the plant in a garden book, or ask for it at a garden center. And tell the difference between a Geranium and a Pelargonium.<\/p>\n
Most gardeners will have difficulty remembering the botanical names of all the plants in a large garden. Some will put plant labels next to the plants as memory aids. This practice can become a \u201ctime-suck\u201d because labels fade, become buried or disappear mysteriously.<\/p>\n
Also, for some gardeners, plant labels are intrusions on the garden\u2019s natural appearance.<\/p>\n
The non-label option is the garden map. This can be a simple sketch of the entire garden or (more commonly) each planting bed in the garden, with plants represented by shapes of various sizes, and with plant names by the shapes or on a numbered list. The simpler the sketch, the easier it is to keep current as plants are added, subtracted, moved or expired.<\/p>\n
Several specialized drawing tools can be found on the Internet, either free or low in cost, to make more formal garden maps. Most are simple to use and handy for planning a vegetable garden, but they generate rather stiff-looking diagrams, rather than a picture of an ornamental planting.<\/p>\n
Enjoy mapping your garden!<\/p>\n
More<\/p>\n
There are several software applications for planning and laying out an edible garden, and a few for designing an ornamental garden (not that veggies can’t be attractive!). Those vegetable garden planners that I’ve seen have excellent information and rather limited graphics. They work best for utilitarian projects, in which efficient use of space is more important than the visual effect.<\/p>\n
If you want to plan an edible garden, take a look at this sample of software products (see others online by searching for “garden planner”).<\/p>\n
Kitchen Garden Planner<\/a> by Gardener’s Supply<\/p>\n PlanGarden<\/a> by PlanGarden.com<\/p>\n Vegetable Garden Planner<\/a> by Mother Earth News<\/p>\n A very good (perhaps the best) vegetable garden planner:<\/p>\n WikiGrow<\/a> by LocalGrow<\/p>\n The best tool I\u2019ve found for mapping an ornamental landscape is the following:<\/p>\n Garden Planner, Version 3.0 <\/a>by smallblueprinter<\/p>\n This inexpensive application supports drawing an irregularly shaped planting bed (like mine), in addition to rectangular vegetable gardens, and representing plants with unique symbols. Mapping a large and full bed takes time, but this software makes the task much easier than using commercial graphics software, e.g., Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator (and much less expensive as well). I will post the result of my efforts in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you know the names of the plants in your garden? Many gardeners don\u2019t care about plant names, but knowing the names of those in your garden can be helpful. The common names for plants are useful in the same … Continue reading