Comments on: Do you name a plant? Is it the same as naming a boat?

Question: Do you name a plant? Is it the same as naming a boat?

brent — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:22:54 -0800

Do you name a plant? Is it the same as naming a boat?

By: handful of rain

handful of rain — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:25:25 -0800

I suppose you could...though I don't think it would be a good idea to crack a bottle of champagne over it.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:31:38 -0800

That would be sort of embarassing.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:47:23 -0800

I have a plant named Bianca. I don't think it minds.

By: Mean Mr. Bucket

Mean Mr. Bucket — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:06:39 -0800

If I named my plants I would be even sadder when they all die. Again.

By: Dipsomaniac

Dipsomaniac — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:13:23 -0800

We name all our tiny Christmas trees. We buy a tiny cypress which dies almost immediately upon getting home no matter what we do. It is named 'Steve'. They are all named Steve.

In the wild, Steve can get really big.

By: DevilsAdvocate

DevilsAdvocate — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:44:49 -0800

If you're taking a survey, I don't name my plants.

By: bonehead

bonehead — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:13:56 -0800

I don't name mine. It only causes heartbreak later (when the cats eat them).

If you choose, be sure sex them properly.

By: trillion

trillion — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:24:40 -0800

I call my favourite plan Mr. Plant. Don't know why.

By: norm

norm — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:28:53 -0800

I hear Kemal Ataturk had an entire menagerie named Abdul.

By: PurplePorpoise

PurplePorpoise — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:29:27 -0800

I used to get ribbed in good humour for drinking alone, so I named my huge aloe plant 'The Lord' so I could drink with it.

/not religious, obviously

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:46:40 -0800

Hold on: are we talking about plants as in vegetable matter or plants as in industrial processing and manufacturing? The latter seem more similar to boats, I suppose.

By: rfs

rfs — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:08:54 -0800

Maybe it's a typo - "plant" is really "plane" ?

By: adampsyche

adampsyche — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:18:50 -0800

My plant doesn't care what I call it so long as I call.

By: iconomy

iconomy — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:35:00 -0800

Maybe he means how do you go about naming a species (is that what you call it?) or a hybrid? Paging brent...

By: mudpuppie

mudpuppie — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:39:28 -0800

Maybe it's a typo - "plant" is really "plane" ?

omg. that makes so much more sense.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:14:25 -0800

This is the most hilarious AskMe ever. I've read through it three times now, laughing out loud the whole time.

I don't name my plants. I'm pretty sure my wife doesn't name them, either.

By: Quinbus Flestrin

Quinbus Flestrin — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:50:52 -0800

We bought a rubber plant many years ago, we had no other pets in our minuscule efficiency apartment so we named it Herman. He grew to be more like a small tree so he was known as Herman R. Tree. One year we moved in January and he did not survive the trip in the unheated moving van. Luckily I had cut off a sticking out branch (so it wouldn't just be ripped off by the movers), this I put in water and it rooted, so we now have Herman R. Tree Jr. living in the corner of our living room.

Once you've named one it's a temptation to name other plants, so we have a pincushion cactus called Bernie, a smaller catus called Bentley, and for a while we had a ponytail palm called Persephone. The joke sort of wore out after a while and we stopped naming new plants, so our three remaining named plants have all been with us for twenty years or so.

By: sixdifferentways

sixdifferentways — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:09:32 -0800

Why name something you're just going to eventually smoke?

By: squeak

squeak — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:10:56 -0800

Closest I've ever come to naming a plant was when I was a kid, we had a huge benjamina ficus that I would refer to as the "benji" otherwise nope never named my plants. I talk to them but that is a whole other topic.

By: stonerose

stonerose — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:54:00 -0800

We have a couple of orchids, named Miss Otis and Rufus Wainwright. But that's only because orchids are a commitment. The only other plants that get names are those that seem to demand them: we once had a Chinese evergreen that insisted on being called Sideshow Bob, because of his silhouette.

By: naomi

naomi — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 15:30:38 -0800

My plant is named Hopkin Green Plant. Have you seen my plant?

p.s. I will find my plant.

By: cmyr

cmyr — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 15:59:37 -0800

Why name something you're just going to eventually smoke?

same reason you name a cow you're eventually going to eat.

bessie?

By: norm

norm — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:06:26 -0800

Why name something you're just going to eventually smoke?

Well I can imagine because that might aid you in keeping track of the particular varietal. Just speculation, of course.

By: Dillonlikescookies

Dillonlikescookies — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 17:33:05 -0800

I named my plants Diana, Maria and Sophia. I think I will alternate between male and female names for each generation of cuttings. I like my plants, I think they deserve a name :)

By: kamikazegopher

kamikazegopher — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 17:55:25 -0800

Yeah, we name our plants. But we have maybe 30-something plants, so we forget their names a lot. The ivy plants all have "ivy" names, though: Ivan, Ivy, Ivanna, etc. And the orchids are names after their physical characteristics. We don't get out much.

By: euphorb

euphorb — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 18:25:24 -0800

I once had a plant named Robert. Get it?

By: lisa g

lisa g — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 18:44:31 -0800

I once had a philodendron in my office called Phil -- creative, I know. I asked our sweet-but-dippy accountant to water him while I was on vacation, and she said, in all seriousness, "How do you know he's a boy?" I suppressed my mad giggles, as she cut my paycheck, but I imagined her lifting up the leaves and peering underneath once I'd left.

My coworker had a philodendron named Lazarus -- she'd forget to water it for weeks, it'd nearly die, and then a bit of water would spring it back to life.

I'm sure this thread was supposed to be about planes, but this is more fun.

By: lisa g

lisa g — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:03:18 -0800

(If indeed the question was about planes, here's this -- from Salon, though it doesn't seem to require the day-pass thing.)

By: rustcellar

rustcellar — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:45:43 -0800

My girlfriend has 3 bamboo thingys named Ling Ling, Ting Ting, and Kiki.

By: rustcellar

rustcellar — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:48:06 -0800

Oh, and yes on this being the most hilarious AskMe thread ever. I'm dying.

By: fvw

fvw — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 20:02:35 -0800

No I don't name my plants. That is to say, I didn't. I'm going to start on the nametags as soon as I finish this comment.

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 04:05:41 -0800

I once had a weeping fig that I named Syd (after Syd Barrett) and a yucca named Sid (after Sid Vicious). A few years after that I had a dragon-tree which I named Susan. More recently, my wife and I named one of our plants George, because it was a bit of a bush.

By: iconomy

iconomy — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 04:21:28 -0800

So, brent, what did you decide to name your plant?