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

December 16, 2004 9:22 AM

Do you name a plant? Is it the same as naming a boat?
posted by brent to Society & Culture (33 answers total)

I suppose you could...though I don't think it would be a good idea to crack a bottle of champagne over it.
posted by handful of rain at 9:25 AM on December 16, 2004

That would be sort of embarassing.
posted by xmutex at 9:31 AM on December 16, 2004

I have a plant named Bianca. I don't think it minds.
posted by sciurus at 9:47 AM on December 16, 2004

If I named my plants I would be even sadder when they all die. Again.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 10:06 AM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 10:13 AM on December 16, 2004 [3 favorites]

If you're taking a survey, I don't name my plants.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:44 AM on December 16, 2004

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

If you choose, be sure sex them properly.
posted by bonehead at 11:13 AM on December 16, 2004

I call my favourite plan Mr. Plant. Don't know why.
posted by trillion at 11:24 AM on December 16, 2004

I hear Kemal Ataturk had an entire menagerie named Abdul.
posted by norm at 11:28 AM on December 16, 2004 [1 favorite]

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
posted by PurplePorpoise at 11:29 AM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:46 AM on December 16, 2004

Maybe it's a typo - "plant" is really "plane" ?
posted by rfs at 12:08 PM on December 16, 2004

My plant doesn't care what I call it so long as I call.
posted by adampsyche at 12:18 PM on December 16, 2004

Maybe he means how do you go about naming a species (is that what you call it?) or a hybrid? Paging brent...
posted by iconomy at 12:35 PM on December 16, 2004

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

omg. that makes so much more sense.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:39 PM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by Plutor at 1:14 PM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 1:50 PM on December 16, 2004

Why name something you're just going to eventually smoke?
posted by sixdifferentways at 2:09 PM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by squeak at 2:10 PM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by stonerose at 2:54 PM on December 16, 2004

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

p.s. I will find my plant.
posted by naomi at 3:30 PM on December 16, 2004

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

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

bessie?
posted by cmyr at 3:59 PM on December 16, 2004 [1 favorite]

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.
posted by norm at 4:06 PM on December 16, 2004

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 :)
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 5:33 PM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by kamikazegopher at 5:55 PM on December 16, 2004

I once had a plant named Robert. Get it?
posted by euphorb at 6:25 PM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by lisa g at 6:44 PM on December 16, 2004

(If indeed the question was about planes, here's this -- from Salon, though it doesn't seem to require the day-pass thing.)
posted by lisa g at 7:03 PM on December 16, 2004

My girlfriend has 3 bamboo thingys named Ling Ling, Ting Ting, and Kiki.
posted by rustcellar at 7:45 PM on December 16, 2004

Oh, and yes on this being the most hilarious AskMe thread ever. I'm dying.
posted by rustcellar at 7:48 PM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by fvw at 8:02 PM on December 16, 2004

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.
posted by misteraitch at 4:05 AM on December 17, 2004

So, brent, what did you decide to name your plant?
posted by iconomy at 4:21 AM on December 17, 2004