Your plants will never judge you, so don’t worry about getting it right or making a mistake It’s that time of year when even the most resolute non-gardeners look out at the spring sunshine and the riot of growth going on outside their windows and feel a pang of curiosity. Yet I think that many of these timid first timers often feel excluded from embracing the joys of horticulture because of a few deep-rooted cultural myths. Whether it’s memorising all the complex rules that daunts you, or the fear of mispronouncing Latin names, here are three ideas that we should liberate ourselves from, so we can all enjoy the wonder of the botanical world. I’m going to start with this: even as a botanist of over 15 years, I am forever finding the old-guard in horticulture “correcting” my pronunciation of scientific names. It’s weird for an attempt at a power move, because all it displays is a poor understanding of why we use them in the first place. You see, botanical Latin isn’t actually Latin, but a strange mishmash, including ancient Greek and a whole host of other languages from Polish to German, and these days even languages like Mandarin. The whole point of doing it this way was to create a universal naming system to avoid confusion, meaning each plant has one definitive name that anyone in the world can use. So say them however you like. Continue reading...
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