I have always told people that there are no headaches in the garden.\u00a0 There are also no social faux pas, ranting politicians or demanding bosses.\u00a0 Some people, of course, bring those things into the garden because they refuse to be parted from their electronic devices.\u00a0 I try to avoid co-mingling of digging and devices because it is better for my health.<\/p>\n
To me, my garden, no matter how weedy or bedraggled it looks at any given time, is a little piece of heaven.\u00a0 Doing my daily garden tour last week, I walked by the patch of yellow archangel\u2014Lamium galeobdolon\u2014on the south side of the house.\u00a0 I have no idea how it acquired that common name, but the heavenly association made me think of the large number of other plants with divine names.<\/p>\n
When my daughter was little and going through her purple phase, we bought \u2018Angel Face\u2019, a floribunda rose with mauve\/lavender petals and a lemony fragrance.\u00a0 The variety is also available as a climber, allowing those particular angels to reach for the skies.\u00a0 A check of the wonderful HelpMeFindRoses database revealed a number of roses with \u201cangel\u201d in their names, including the lovely \u2018Litchfield Angel\u2019, a cream-colored English rose by David Austin that smells faintly of clove.<\/p>\n
\u2018Celestial\u2019, an alba rose from the eighteenth century, inspires uplifting thoughts with is pale pink petals and divine fragrance.\u00a0 It is one of at least four varieties featuring \u2018celestial\u2019 in their names.<\/p>\n
Those who prefer their heavenly plant monikers to border on the irreverent can also purchase \u2018Holy Cow\u2019, a dark red floribunda rose.<\/p>\n
Every summer the trellising below my back porch is partially covered with \u2018Heavenly Blue\u2019 morning glories, which feature sky-blue, trumpet-shaped blooms.\u00a0 The morning glories are annual, but I let mine set seed and they come up every year with no help from me.\u00a0 If I wanted a perennial climber in the same shade, I could buy Clematis \u2018Heavenly Blue\u2019, a large-flowered variety, with gorgeous three-inch blossoms.\u00a0 I am sure that contemplating either climber would spur even the least devout to virtuous thoughts.<\/p>\n
Gregor Mendel is probably the best known cleric associated with plants, but there have been many more of them, before and since Mendel\u2019s time.\u00a0 Brother Stefan Franzak, a twentieth century Polish monk, was fabled for clematis breeding efforts.\u00a0 He named at least two after religious figures: ‘Cardinal Wyszynski’, with large, bright flowers as red as a cardinal\u2019s hat, and \u2018John Paul II\u2019, another large-flowered climber with white and pink blooms.<\/p>\n
The late Pope is also honored with a namesake hybrid tea rose bearing pristine white petals.<\/p>\n
Brother Charles Reckamp was an American daylily breeder and a brother of the Society of Divine Word.\u00a0 His \u2018Heavenly Pastel\u2019 daylily, bred and introduced with the help of nurseryman Roy Klehm, features flowers that contain a mix of yellow and pink, with heavily ruffled petals. \u00a0Georgia daylily breeder Tim Bell introduced a similarly colored, ruffled variety called \u2018Holy Ground\u2019; as well as \u2018Water of Life\u2019, an unusual daylily with petals in shades of lighter and darker purple, edged in cream yellow.\u00a0 Many other Bell daylilies bear names with religious associations.<\/p>\n
Of course, not all plants with spiritual names boast heavenly habits.\u00a0 Ailanthus altissima is commonly known as \u201cTree of Heaven\u201d, but has all kinds of undesirable traits.\u00a0 Imported from its native China in the eighteenth century, the plant grows rapidly, produces abundant suckers that develop into new trees and is anchored by roots that secrete an allelopathic substance that kills nearby plants.\u00a0 It is considered invasive in many parts of the United States.<\/p>\n
We should all avoid \u201cTree of Heaven\u201d, but each of \u00a0us probably contemplates a little evil from time to time, even in the garden.\u00a0 If that is your inclination, rest easy.\u00a0 You can also plant at least six rose varieties with \u201cdevil\u201d in their names<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have always told people that there are no headaches in the garden.\u00a0 There are also no social faux pas, ranting politicians or demanding bosses.\u00a0 Some people, of course, bring those things into the garden because they refuse to be parted from their electronic devices.\u00a0 I try to avoid co-mingling of digging and devices because … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,1,5],"tags":[1639,46,1638,302,11],"class_list":["post-2114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-uncategorized","category-winter","tag-clematis","tag-daylilies","tag-heavenly-flowers","tag-peonies","tag-roses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2115,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions\/2115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}