Plant Profile: Aegopodium podagraria 'Variegatum'

Botanical Name: Aegopodium podagraria 'Variegatum'

Common Name:  bishop’s weed, gout weed

Plant Type: perennial

Zone: 4-8

Growth Rate: average

Light Requirements: full shade, part shade

Special Attributes: invasive, ground cover

Height x Spread: 12” x 12” (indefinite spread at a moderate rate)

Bloom Time: May-June
Bloom Description: tiny white flowers
Foliage Description: light green and white ovate leaves
Soil: average, well drained
Water: regular (water well in summer)
Tidy: shear to remove unsightly leaves and promote new growth
Fertilizer: none
Diseases: Leaf Blight in hot and humid summer climates

Notes: Easy to grow in dry to medium well-drained soil in part sun or shade. Foliage will often scorch in hot, dry, full sun conditions. Spreads by underground stems (rhizomes) and can be aggressive.

Identifying Poisonous Plants

It goes without saying that it’s a good idea to know if your plants are poisonous to humans or animals. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find one database or resource that gives a complete list of all the poisonous plants in the United States. Here are few sites that you can visit if you’re trying to determine if your plants are toxic:

Cornell University’s Plants Poisonous to Livestock Database
US Army Guide to Poisonous and Toxic Plants
Texas A&M University’s Poisonous Plants Publication

With the Christmas season approaching, it’s a good time to remind ourselves that some of the plants we use to decorate our homes can be harmful to pets. Mistletoe and Holly are two that can be moderately to severely toxic. I always thought that Poinsettia was poisonous, but according the Cornell site it’s not very toxic at all. Still, it’s a good idea to keep it out of the reach of pets and children.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Plants Database

A great source of plant information is the Plants Database available on-line through the United States Department of Agriculture website. This is definitely the place to go if you want to know everything from plant classification (i.e. Kingdom, Subkingdom, Division etc.) to foliage color.

When you go to the site you’ll find a Search area located at the top left side of the page. Type a plant name in the Name Search field and select a search type (Common Name, Scientific Name, Symbol). The Symbol is a unique name created by the USDA for use within the database.  The naming convention is a little complicated so if you want to search by Symbol, first take a look at the Plants Tutorial. If you’re not entirely sure how to spell a plant name or if your search isn’t turning up any results try using the wildcard character (*) in your search (e.g. chrysanth* will return all database records for chrysanthemum). You can also do a state search which helps narrow down the results.

It takes a little practice to learn how to navigate this site, but once you get the hang of it you’ll find a lot of useful information. Here’s an example to help get you started:

1. Type “liriope muscari” in the Name Search field.
2. Select the search type Scientific Name.
3. Press the Go button

A list of plant names will display. You can sort the columns alphabetically by clicking on the column titles (Symbol, Scientific Name, Common Name). This comes in handy when your search returns a long list of plants.

Now click on the entry for “Liriope muscari”. This is where you’ll see specific detail for the plant. On the right side of the screen you’ll see a link for Characteristics. Click on it to drill down even deeper into the database details. Use the information here to fill out your GardenScribe Plant Detail pages.

While you’re on this site, explore some of the interesting sections on the sidebar like “Invasive and Noxious Weeds” and “Threatened & Endangered”.

You won’t find every plant from your garden in the Plants Database. As a matter of fact it’s not really intended for common garden plants. It has mostly native and naturalized plants. But, since many of us have started to garden using native plants, I thought this would be a useful research source. Plus, they have a great list of internet links to help direct you to other plant information sources.

Whatch-a-ma-call-it

Probably the most important thing you can know about a plant is…the name. I guess that seems like an obvious statement. But, I can’t count the number of times people have walked through my garden and said “Hey…that’s really pretty…what’s it called”, and I say “Um…I can’t remember”. I’ve heard other gardeners say the same thing so I guess it’s a fairly common problem.

My memory definitely seems to be getting worse, but maybe the real reason I can’t remember the names of all of my plants is that I just have too many (at which point all of you gardeners out there should say “bite your tongue…you can never have too many plants”).

I guess it’s not that important to keep the plant name in your head. But, it’s really important to have it written down somewhere because at some point you’re going to want to learn more about the plant so you know how to take care of it, and without the name, you’re sunk. So, before you throw out the plant tag or nursery pot, be sure to write down the name on a GardenScribe Plant Detail page.

As you research your plant, some of the sources that you’ll use will be organized by botanical name and some by common name, so it’s helpful to know both. If you’d like to learn how to pronounce the botanical name, FineGardening.com has a tool that actually speaks the Latin name for you. How cool is that! Just go to the Fine Gardening Pronunciation Guide for Plants and select a Plant Name. You’ll hear a nice lady speak the name.

I think I spent at least 10 minutes selecting different names just to hear the weird pronunciations. While you’re at the Fine Gardening website take a look around. The site has a lot of great features.

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