Echinacea 'Virgin'
Is it, now....
Seems to me like this frayed, overly-petaled freak lost its virginity years ago in the lab (I'm becoming a plant purist fyi). It ain't as much a monstrosity as others--see double decker--but if you're going to name genetically engineered plants maybe you should go with something else:
Echinacea 'Chastity Belt Unlocked'
Echinacea 'Been Around the Block'
Echinacea 'Nothing Gives You That Right'
Echinacea 'Don't Know What I Am Anymore'
Echinacea 'I Love You Long Time'
11 comments:
I couldn't agree more, especially about double decker. There is one called green envy, that is just like a seedling here that got a virus, making the petals shorter and kind of green. I had to rip up the whole bed of them. Be careful of these if you want to have volunteer seedlings. Why can't they leave well enough alone! I do like the sunrise, sunset series though.
Frances at Faire Garden
Frances--I tried a sunset and twilight once, but for some reason they performed very poorly, and they were right next to my other coneflowers. I do like those rusty reds though, so might try again.
But, Benjamin, think of the combinations you could create with such a thing. Maybe pair it with 'Virginal' mock orange and 'Purity' perennial candytuft for a Driven Snow Garden. Or perhaps with 'Madonna' elderberry and 'Black Negligee' bugbane for a Naughty Garden? Oh, the possibilities....
Those are some sweet ideas, actually. Why not have a naughty garden? But who would know, unless you had labels, or a plant geek visited. Maybe one could put the naughty garden behind the driven snow garden with a miscanthus between, whipping away in the breeze. I go too far. It's grad school's fault.
Benjamin:
I think you have a future in naming hybrids! I asked someone 'in the biz' about the plethora of new echinacea hybrids and whether or not they are genetically engineered. He said they are hybridized which is very different from GE. Just wondered if this is accurate. We will have a blue rose to buy next year I hear. Oh good! Not sure I will like a blue rose but give me anything else blue and I am on it!
Layanee--Well, thanks for correcting me. Still, I find it hard--if not impossible--to find ye ole standard coneflower (which is far more intersting to me). And I'm not much of a rose fan, and blue one doesn't make me any more of one.
This was a good post - I loved all the names you came up with. Sometimes I wonder where all this hybridising will take us.
I guess the idea is that people will keep buying all of these new introductions. It seems to me, at times, to be another manifestation of our consumer society.
Kate--Consumer society yes, but I suppose I'm also a bit of a hypocrite when I rant about coneflowers (as I'm sure I have other plants which aren't "pure" in the garden). Still, it IS a symptom of everything else we do. I've got this book by Bill McKibben called The End of Nature; he says one day we won't have chickens, just pulsating hunks of chicken breast on shelves with feeder and waste tubes running in and out--the reason being we don't need all that other stuff from the chicken. Pleasant thought.
I like your names much better... but particularly enjoy Nan's idea of a naughty garden. In fact, the best thing about it would be that most people wouldn't know what it meant, and you could snicker while they went on about "Oh, how pretty it is!" ;)
You're right, Kim, that would be best if you could snicker under your breath. Still, I'm one of those people who has to tell others about my sneakiness.
I think in my next house, years down the road, I'll have to do this. Surely someone out there already has?
Nan Ondra...
If you want a naughty garden don't forget to include Golden Showers climbing rose...
Personally, Virgin Coneflower is actually quite beautiful, floriferous, and has a long bloom period. This is a new fave for me.
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