Achellia to Geum

We are reorganizing the nursery and attempting to place all the perennials in alphabetical order (by Latin name). The task may be daunting for someone with slightly OCD tendencies, but it's proving very educational as I learn about different plant genuses (geni?):

- Achillea: a fairly tall, stalky plant with delicate leaves and flat clumps of small flowers (like Queen Anne's Lace); varietal names general describe the colour of the petals such as "Cloth of Gold" and "Pearls"

- Agapanthus: sometimes referred to as Lily of the Nile, a beautiful monocot with slender, vibrant flowers radiating outward to form spherical clumps; most varieties we had in stock had amazingly colourful buds ranging from deep navy blue to an elegant grey.

- Artemisia: a beautiful bushy plant with silvery leaves that are soft and delicate like fern fronds.

- Aster: large, tall plants with daisy-like flowers in a wide range of colours with very slender petals

- Baptisia: a shrublike plant with beautiful light green leaves

- Begonias: the only breed we have in stock is a low plant with bright red flowers and dark mahogany leaves

- Campanula: a boring plant with tall, upright stems and droopy-looking flowers - not my favourite.

- Canna: an amazing, tropical-looking plant with bright red-orange blooms and beautiful variegated leaves with greens, yellows, and husky oranges.

- Crocosmia: a plant similar to a lily with long, narrow leaves and beautifully intricate flowers; one of the most spectacular flowers in bloom now is a breed of crocosmia with scarlet flowers with "arching spikes of upward facing flowers"

- Delphiniums: well-known plants with towers of small flowers standing on tall stalks; a wonderful palette of shades ranging from blue-blacks to soft whites, which seem to have romantic names like "Galahad" and "Black Knight"

- Digitalis: low plants with large, oval leaves and bell-shaped flowers; poisonous.

- Euphorbia: a gigantic genus of shrubby evergreen plants that like dry areas; pointsettias belong to this genus.

- Fuchsia: viny plants with astonishingly vibrant flowers; the double flowers - often in shades of violet, white, and (of course) fuchsia - hang down with dramatically long stamen; varieties include "Delta Sarah". Unfortunately, they can be very difficult to untangle from each other and the flowers are easily broken off.

- Gaillardia: a bushy plant with daisy-like blooms like beautiful little suns; the flowers start yellow at the tips of the petals and gradually turn to a rusty orange in the centre.

- Geum: small, boring plants with round-ish leaves

Conclusion: how will I ever learn common names?

Each flower is a soul blossoming out to nature. - Gerard de Nerval