A Plant by any other Name

The weekend before Christmas we were, as usual, waiting for the rain to stop so we could cut the paths free of the encroaching gardens. Overseas visitors are coming and the gardens are full of weeds and over grown plants. Never have I seen so many healthy weeds and sky reaching trees, so soon after our annual cleanup blitz that takes place at open garden times. A garden gone as mad as its female owner. I now must work hard in presenting myself as a VEG [very eccentric gardener] who has the ability to completely ignore the weeds [after all, what are they but too eager plants?] and the over keenness of the trees and shrubs [should not they be allowed to grow as Nature ordains?] and concentrate on the naming of the dozens of plants that over time have lost their identities. The eccentricity that I am developing as quickly as I can, must be carefully created. After all, I do not want it to be diagnosed wrongly as senile decay.

A plant by any other name may be beautiful and smell as sweet but it is humiliating for the poor thing to be described to visitors as "Yes! It is nice. I purchased it from such and such a nursery. My mind has gone blank at the moment but I have it noted its name in my diary inside and will look it up for you"

Now, I do have most plants that have been placed in the soil, with the full names jotted down in this diary. Every weekend I would write of the happenings at "Kibbenjelok". Unfortunately, these entries have started petering out, basically at the same time as I began to write these articles in Suite 101.com. I also have a pot with the useless name tags stored, hundreds of them!

Why useless? Well may you ask. I am yet to find a good method for the home gardener to keep tabs on the plants in her/his garden. For one thing, I am behind the eight ball almost before the roots are covered in soil. Kees is our main planter and a very good planter he is. BUT, he has an uncontrollable habit of placing the name tag in his top pocket when the planting is finished. He may place any number of plants in one exercise and there, in his shirt pocket the tags remained until he shoved them in the large, over stuffed "name tag" jar. Several years ago, I begged him to at least shove the little paper tags with green twists, in the soil next to the plant so I could follow up at the end of the day and try and install them into my memory. "She, who must be obeyed" was obeyed for several weekends.

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