"I asked him years later (1980's) if he could remember what it was called and he said he couldn't remember anything except that it was a brand name followed by some numbers." I'm not normally a fan of hybrids, but one of my all-time favorite sweet corns is the hybrid "NK 199". It is an SU hybrid, not a super sweet. Wide yellow ears with 16-18 rows of kernels, and rich corn flavor. It was really good for canning & freezing too, and was highly productive. Like most older sweet corns, it had a very short harvest window, so you had to watch it closely as it matured. I grew a white sweet corn that also had true corn flavor, but it's been a lot of years, and all I remember is that it was 'silver' or 'platinum' something... someone told me years back that it had been discontinued. In recent years, though, I've come to love the SE hybrid "Miracle". It is sweeter than "NK 199", but still has a good balance of flavor & sweetness. It has the same large cobs as "NK 199" & is equally productive, but has better disease resistance. I too have fond memories of going to a town corn roast with my grandparents, and all they served was field corn picked young. Buttered & salted fresh from the kettle, it was delicious.

After reading these posts, I am wondering how much a person's temperament and personality type determines how they approach gardening. I'd never thought about this before but I'm becoming convinced it plays a large role. Saving plant tags reminds me of scrap-booking, an occupation which is very popular with many people who have an avid interest in consolidating & organizing various subjects in that way. Plant tags don't have much information beyond plant name, planting instructions, mature plant size and sun/shade preference so I toss them since they've served their purpose. It would have never dawned on me to put them in a scrap book or create a log with a list of plants and dates. My "diagram" is achieved by looking out from a second story window where I can visually study the overall scheme from above and plan changes I envision. Most of my plants did not come with tags so if I did make a book, it would not reflect my garden because I am a seeds/trades/cuttings type of gardener. I design in my head trying to create the final vision I see and this is the challenge. I invite repeats for mass and naturalizing created spontaneously by the garden itself for cohesion, the plants often choose their own spots for the better. My job is often a matter of selectively thinning rather than adding but I enjoy doing this. Usually I purchase a plant with the idea of obtaining material with which to start a colony by way of seed or cuttings for adding texture & color. Sometimes I purchase a plant intended to be focal plant for contrast but not often since the bones were established years ago and the names and characteristics of these plants are known to me without mental effort or need to reference. An overall natural balance is what I am after and I intervene accordingly. The garden is continually evolving and changing, one year often differs from the year previous in what dominates so its a very organic approach which fits my temperament and need for escape from the confinement of rules and control in most other aspects of life. A good plant encyclopedia is an adequate reference source containing the brief information found on a plant tag for my own purposes. It is interesting to read about the approach others take to achieve their goals. There are no rigid rules to this, its individual.

We just got home from the volunteer presale, and it was so busy! Feeling a little brokenhearted over the failure of several plants we had our eye on, but still managed to find a few. Here's our final list, excuse the many typos, I'm exhausted! All for under $200. Annuals: Amaranth "Dread Locks" Angel's Trumpet Bat Face (2 varieties) Beardtongue "Sunburst Ruby" Butterfly Flower Coleus "Alabama Sunrise" Coleus "Kiwi Fern" Coleus "Dr. Wu" Copperleaf (2 varieties) Regal Geranium "Solstice Chocolate" Regal Geranium "Solstice Mix" Goldfish Plant Hibiscus "Haight Ashbury" Impatiens "Jungle Gold" Impatiens "Salmon Butterfly" Kiss-Me-Over-the-Garden-Gate Lantana "Irene" Lantana "Cherry Sunrise" Lion's ears MIllion Bells "Crackling Fire" Nemesia "Sunsatia Mango" Nipple Fruit Carpet Petunia Dreams Petunia "midnight" Pimpernel, Wildcat "Mandarin" Trailing Snapdragon "Playful Copper" Flowering Tobacco Torch of Texas Begonia rex "escargot" Bulbs: Asiatic Lilies Blackout and Black Spider Climbers: Purple Bell Vine Black-Eyed Susan Vine "susie" Butterfly vine chickabiddy cup and saucer vine firecracker vine passionflower sky vine 'blue sky' Franziska Maria Honeysuckle 'harlequin' hops clematis tube climbing bleeding heart Shrubs/Trees: lilac 'tinkerbelle' magnolia tree red snowberry Perennials: balloon flower 'fairy snow' bitter root 'little plum' bleeding heart p. ochroleuca bleeding heart p. lutea weeping bush clover 'gibraltar' candy lilly clematis bush 'rosea' clematis bush c. integrifolia shasta daisy 'sonnenschen' delphinium 'magic fountains cherry blossom' fairy foxglove flower of love pink gas plant catmint 'pink cat' rock jasmine sage 'pruple rain' japanese toad lily veronica 'blue feathers' rodgers flower meadow rue dwarf bowmans root delphinium blue mirror blue flax foxglove 'strawberry' foxglove 'willowleaf' hollyhock 'peaches and dreams' 'pasqueflower 'red bells' pasqueflower 'alba' columbine songbird mix seaholly amethyst digitalis forget the variety

Yeah, it's that one that folks don't know the name of. :) Seriously, no, there isn't a plant with the official name of Mystery Plant. You see monikers like that tacked onto ordinary plants in those cheap Sunday supplements and low-end garden catalogs to entice naive gardeners. And sometimes people just attach a "name" like that to a plant cuz they don't know the real name, and then pass it along. Although many folks have an aversion to scientific names, this is why they exist. Common names are all over the map, and are often unhelpful in telling you what plant you've got. Get a little more info from the guy, anything he can remember about the plant such as plant habit (e.g. bushy and clumping? running like a groundcover? etc), height, leaf shape (e.g. strap-like? heart-shaped? etc) and arrangement (e.g. rosette? growing off the stems? etc) and flower shape (e.g. daisy-like, petunia-like, etc), bloom arrangement (e.g. in a flat-topped cluster? single bloom? in a spike? etc) and flower color. With that info we could take a good whack at getting an ID. Marty