Whether you're trying to match a plant in your garden, researching a shrub online, reading a catalog or talking with other gardeners or nursery staff, you will soon be confronted with what may seem like a disorganized barrage of plant terminology and botanical expressions.
When these unfamiliar terms pop up, it’s helpful to understand a little about what they mean and why they are used. If nothing else, tossing around a little botanical vocabulary will be sure to impress the riff-raff at the local garden club.
First up are "botanical names". These are the scientific names assigned to all life on earth, both plants and animals, and are recognized internationally. Pittosporum tobira means precisely the same thing in Japan, Italy or Australia that it does at the local garden center. Even if you're not sure about the pronunciation of a botanical name, as long as you’re close, the plant mentioned can never be confused. For example, if someone says they have a hawthorn, it might be any one of several different plants. But if someone says they have a Rhaphiolepis indica we know precisely what plant they have.
All plants in the world have a two-word botanical name. Furthermore, no two plants have the same botanical name. The first word is always the genus, the second is always the species. "Common names" are what most use when talking about plants and they are usually adequate for general conversation, but botanical names are much more precise.
Another name a gardener may see is "cultivar". This is simply a shortening of the words cultivated variety, and refers to a very specific version of a plant species that was created by humans. Cultivars do not occur naturally; they are the result of human selection, hybridizing or breeding. If a unique version of a plant species is naturally occurring, instead of being a cultivar, it would be considered a "variety".
"Evergreen" plants are those that keep their leaves year-round. “Deciduous” plants drop their leaves during a portion of the year, usually in the cold winter months, but sometimes during the dry summer period, as with some California native plants. “Perennial" usually refers to plants that either die back to the ground each year or at least do not develop any significant woodiness.
Unlike perennials, which live for at least a few year, “annuals” are plants that complete their entire life cycle in one year. "Biennials" take two years to complete their life cycle, usually developing sprouting a developing a leafy stage the first year, then flowering and setting seed during the second year. Common examples of biennials are most foxglove and hollyhock.
Especially when buying plants from seed, watch for the term "hybrid". These are plants created from crossing at least two closely related parent plants. Planting seeds collected from a hybrid plant often results in quite a surprise to gardeners, with unpredictable results. Much like creating a mule always requires a horse and a donkey, re-creating a hybrid plant will also require the same parent plants. Mules cannot be bred to each other and re-created. Neither can most hybrid tomatoes, hybrid avocadoes or most any other hybrid plant.
One final plant term that I always find thought provoking is the term "native". Native is intended to refer to plants that were naturally occurring in a specific area. However, applying the term native to a plant is inherently controversial. For instance, a “native” plant in California may have never been naturally occurring in the area where your little garden sits today. Dozens of “native” plants on the market today have never occured naturally in Orange County. In many cases they are “native” to areas hundreds of miles away. They still may be excellent choices for a garden, but not necessarily because of a “native” label.
I’m sure you’re already confused enough by now, so we’ll leave plant terminology for another day; words like bulbs, tubers and corms, stolons and rhizomes, dioecious and monoecious, and palmate and pinnate.
Now you’re almost ready to go face to face with that smarty-pants, know-it-all wordsmith at the local garden club.
Ron Vanderhoff is the Nursery Manager at Roger’s Gardens, Corona del Mar
Questions from Readers
February 28, 2010
Question:
When should I plant a tomato in my garden?
Norma
Answer:
No rush. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to plant tomatoes earlier and earlier, falsely believing that the earlier they plant, the earlier they will have fruit. The reality is that tomatoes planted earlier don’t fruit any sooner, since it is the night temperatures that regulate flower production and pollination. However, they do run the risk of developing a disease called early blight. For most of our area I believe the prime tomato planting period to be March and April.
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