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Practically Gardening Tips

Illuminating Latin – Plant Names that Make Sense

Hakonechloa GrassGardeners tend to divide easily into 2 schools: those who love colloquial plant names and those who insist on Latin. There’s some crossover, especially as new gardeners learn the lingo, but there’s a definite divide.

I love the descriptiveness of common names – bleeding heart, love lies bleeding, bluets – but I appreciate that the only way to be certain of what you are getting is to call it by its Latin name. So it was nice to find out that even in Latin, there are descriptive phrases.

For instance, if you want the Black-eyed Susan with fuzzy leaves, you want Rudbeckia tomentosa, because tomentosa means “downy”. Without knowing the common name of spotted deadnettle, you will know Lamium maculatum has spotted leaves. Unlike Lamium purpureum, which has purple leaves. Trifolium repens, white clover, makes it very clear it will spread.

 

Lamium FlowersThe same Latin phrases get used over and over again. Mastering a few of these will give you a good clue about what you’re getting, even when the plant is not in flower or when you are ordering based on a catalog description. Get our your flash cards.

Picturesque Latin

Latin
Meaning
alba
white
argentea
silver
aurea
yellow foliage
contorda
twisted
grandiflora
large flowers
grandifolia
large leaves
lutea
yellow
maculata
spotted
nana
dwarf
odorata
scented
pendulata
weeping
prostratus
low growing
purpurea
purple
repens
creeping
rugosa
wrinkled
scandens
climbing
sempervivens
evergreen
stricta
upright
tomentosa
downy

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A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

— George A. Moore

Hello! I'm Marie Iannotti. I’m a gardener who writes, photographs, and speaks about gardening. Slightly irreverent. Always enthusiastic.

I’ve lived in the Hudson Valley since I was a young child, except for a brief stint as a city girl, and consider myself a born again local. I was the gardening expert at About.com for over a decade, but my real fascination is with this beautiful valley. Some people gasp at scenery and say how it looks just like a painting. The Hudson Valley inspired an entire school of painters. I believe it is the most beautiful place on earth.

I also teach eCourses, and have a handful of books. I hope you’ll take a look at them. (My books) And I hope you'll stop by often, to hear about gardens to visit, plants to grow, and the occasional mussing on the poetic side of gardening. Thank you for visiting.

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"Lovers of edibles need to hang onto their socks! Marie Iannotti has given us a guide to growing 100 of the yummiest and most dazzling heirloom vegetables. I dare you to read this and not drool."

—Ivette Soler, author of "The Edible Front Yard"

“The writing here is as crisp as the layout, which uses colored page edges and a simple, slightly-New Englandy sense of style to get its point across. Best of all, it’s hard to think of anything NOT covered here… and yet there’s no sense of the text book in these pages, and only that homey feel one gets while actually gardening.”

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"Half the interest of the garden is the constant exercise of the imagination." – Mrs. C. W. Earle

— Marie Iannotti (@PracticalGarden) March 27, 2014

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