Friday 27 July 2007

Little green book

I've wanted one of these beautiful little books for ages and finally managed to get my hands on one at lunchtime in the treaure-trove Oxfam shop close to the office. Such pretty pictures and I love that it uses all the common garden names for flowers that I remember Mum using when I was little but they hardly ever do on Gardeners World! Wonderful names like slipperwort, snapdragon (so much nicer than antirrhinum), crowfoot (rannuculus), red valerian (centranthus), red hot poker (kniphofia), mallow (lavatera), cinquefoil (potentilla) - the flower on the book cover from the vase on my desk - vervain (verbena), columbine (aquilegia) etc.

So, I know a lot more plant names than I thought I did - just turns out I'm stuck in the 1950s!

2 comments:

Kimberley said...

Oooo, what a find! I'd love to have one of those. Being from the American South, I call plants all sorts of things that are NOT their Latin names ;)

Congratulations on being my 3rd PIF poster! Send me an e-mail with your address and then be on the lookout!

Have a great day,
Kimberley

Vintage to Victorian said...

Hi Steph

My word, that's taken me back ... a very long way! I still have my original Observer Book of Dogs, and there are a few others STILL packed away after our house move last year!

The old names are much 'cosier' somehow, aren't they!

Sue x