As we walked through a garden center the other day, a friend of mine picked up a plant and said joyfully, “Oh, I’ve been looking for one of these! I have to give it to my friend Jenny – it’s named after her!” The plant was Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia), a low-growing groundcover from Europe and Asia. This got us thinking about other plants with people names, and how they would make really fun gifts for people with those names, or a neat themed garden bed.
Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus)
There are plenty of plants used as people names, like Lily, Rose, Pansy, Daisy, Iris, Holly, Heather, and on and on. But what about people names used for plants? Here are the ones we came up with:
- Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia)
- Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus)
- Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
- Johnny Jump-Up (Viola tricolor)
- Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota)
- Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
- Saint John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
- Golden Alexander (Zizia aurea)
Can you help us add to the list? Remember, we’re not looking for plants that are commonly used as people names, but instead plants that were given the names of people. Drop me a line in the comments with your suggestions!
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Cupid’s dart is the first one I came up with.
This is something I love about roses. For example, Griff’s Red in my garden tolerates the nasty high desert 5B climate thrown at it… and its name also evokes for me a favorite pastor now gone to God: Fr Griffin! AlicePat, a pretty floribunda, has the name of both my mother — Alice — and her best friend, Pat. How perfect is that?
Um, what about Herb Robert?
Shall give it a try- Adam’s needle,- Golden Marguerite,- Busy lizzie,- Candytuft ?…
Would Eryngium giganteum ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’ be one? or is that just a varietal.
When my son Andrew went to work at a local nursery the owner game me a Hibiscus named Andrew’s eyes. It was beautiful and as Andrew’s mom I loved it.