Flowers often have interesting histories when it comes to their names.
The names of the roses I have grown remind us of the person who did the naming — or at least of memorable people. For example, in my Heath garden, I grew Madame Hardy, a rose bred in 1832 by Alexandre Hardy who named it for his wife.
The first rose I planted in Heath was named Passionate Nymphs Thigh. I could not resist that name. This rose was named by the Napoleon Bonaparte’s first wife, Empress Joséphine whose country house, Château de Malmaison, had the perfect acreage for the large gardens she was to plant.
Roses were Empress Joséphine’s favorite of all the usual and exotic plants in her garden. Apparently, she enjoyed giving imaginative names to her plants. She chose “Cuisse de Nymph Emue,” which translated means “Thigh of an Aroused Nymph” and proved scandalous enough in some quarters that it also came to be called “Maiden’s Blush.”
During Napoleon’s wars, there was always an order to allow packages from the English nurseryman, Kennedy, to come through the blockades. Napoleon himself often sent his wife roses from his campaigns. Her garden ultimately included 200 different roses.
It was the great British rose breeder David Austin who named a rose for the celebrated Constance Spry (1886-1960), the British florist and educator who changed the way we all arrange our bouquets. Austin honored many other ladies — and gentlemen — of the horticultural world, including Gertrude Jekyll and Graham Thomas, and characters from literature like Sweet Juliet and Brother Cadfael. Clearly, it pays to be a plant breeder, and have the right to commemorate friends or famous people of history.
Lawrence Johnston (1871-1958) was American born, but after attending the University of Cambridge in England, he became a naturalized British citizen. He joined the British military, fighting in the Second Boer War and later in World War I.
His mother bought a 300-acre estate named Hidcote Manor. Johnston joined his widowed mother after 40 years collecting plants, hunting for plants in such places as the Alps and the Andes, and designing gardens with wonderful plant combinations. After 1930, the gardens became more and more well known for their individualistic beauty and plants. He named a number of the flowers in his garden for Hidcote, including Hidcote lavender, the Hidcote Gold rose and the Hidcote Beauty fuchsia.
We in the U.S. had our own wonderful rose breeder Dr. Griffith Buck (1915-1991), who fought in World War II and then enrolled at the University of Iowa. He stayed on there as a professor for the rest of his professional life. He hybridized 80 roses, with a goal of making them cold-hardy to -20 degrees and strong enough to not need pesticides or fungicides.
Several Buck roses are among the Earth-Kind collection of trouble-free roses. Living in Heath, I needed hardy roses, and the large pink Applejack rose greeted our guests as they made the turn to the front of our house. It was one of the first roses planted, and was still going strong with little attention 35 years later when we moved to Greenfield, where I am now growing the beautiful fragrant pale peach Folksinger Buck rose. Buck chose many names that reflected the Midwest, like Prairie Star, Winter Sunset, Hawkeye Belle and Earth Song.
Breeders at the Antique Rose Emporium in Texas bred an amazing cerise red rose that blooms into November. They chose to name it after Thomas Affleck, a 19th-century nurseryman who had a nursery just down the road from their operation. I grew this rose in Heath where its vigor amazed us, and I am growing another Thomas Affleck here in Greenfield because it is so beautiful, so carefree and still blooming in late October.
Here in Franklin County, we are not far from the Olallie Daylily Gardens in South Newfane, Vt. Many of the daylilies there were hybridized by Dr. George Darrow (1889-1983), whose long career for the United States Department of Agriculture was as a geneticist. He concentrated on small fruits and berries. At least one of the plants he worked with was the blueberry. He was not only honored by having a blueberry named after him (Darrow blueberries can be purchased at Nourse Farms), but he also helped start the pick-your-own berry movement.
In his retirement, Darrow began hybridizing daylilies. The names he chose for his successes all began with “Olallie,” which was the name of a West Coast Native American tribe. Loosely translated, it means “place where berries are found.” Thus, he thought Olallie would be the perfect name for his farm.
Darrow’s Olallie Farm in Maryland came into being first with berries, but the daylilies he created bore names like Olallie Lass, Olallie Harvest and Olallie Light Hearted. Some of the Olallie daylilies are named after family and friends. Now, it is grandson Christopher Darrow who owns the amazing Olallie Daylily Gardens in Vermont, and has hybridized 125 new Olallie daylilies.
Christopher Darrow always has new hybrids coming along, and invites people to suggest new names for his daylilies on the farm’s website, daylilygarden.com. Wouldn’t your sweetheart like a unique daylily with her/his name?
Pat Leuchtman has been writing and gardening since 1980. Readers can leave comments at her website: commonweeder.com.