Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Why don't people use the word "beguiling" more often in describing plants and flowers?
Beguiling perfectly describes many flowers that enchant and charm us, lure us in to planting them in our gardens. Then they break our gardening hearts. Where did we go wrong? Why did we fall victim to the charms and enchantments of these plants, again?
We know these plants are thugs ready to take over, or maybe they are wimps that will never survive in our gardens. We think they are cute, and in our gardens we'll manage them.
Perhaps "beguiler" should be included in some botanical names, just to warn us. Viola beguiler. Rosa beguiler. Hemerocallis beguiler. Plant beguiler.
The species name would clue us in, at least, to the potential to be charmed by some plant or another. We would still fall for the plant, be beguiled by it, but at least we would have been warned.
Beguiling plants... one of a thousand random thoughts of gardening scattered through every day.