Sadly, sometimes those plants that have exactly the perfect name for our loved ones, have some egregious fault or other, or are just downright ugly. I once bought the daylily 'Hazel' because that was my mom's name, but I couldn't stand the plant. (I forget why, but possibly because the blooms didn't open well, or had poor substance, or the plant was prone to leaf streak (no rust back then), or the colors were muddy and dingy looking together. Yellow (or gold) and red together in daylilies is mostly a color combination that I cannot stand, anyway. Oddly enough, though, that same color combo is in the daylily 'April Fools', whose flower is actually quite nice in person, better than the database images suggest. I got that one for my husband; his birthday is April 1st, and he loves jokes.)
For anyone planning a memorial garden, I should point out (though you probably already realize this), that plants that are here today may be gone tomorrow - or at least, much harder to find and acquire. That's why I'm so anxious for a certain iris nursery to respond to my email, because I want those two irises (pictured in my page 1 post), 'Lovely Lois' (for my sister) and 'Lord Jeff' (for my daughter's alma mater).
Someday, if I *ever* get just what I want out of the seedling patch(es), I hope to name some plants for my dogs. (For my mom, and sister and daughter, and other folks too... of course. And for various other things, such as snippets of poetry (DH loves poetry and is always reciting it). I have an ever growing list of potential plant names, mostly paired with certain bloom traits. I just need to get just the right plants.
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