Gottagarden, the exact same thing happened to me. I ended up with those orange daylilies too(Hemerocallis). That was my first introduction to "common" names from people who are not really into gardening. I try and use the latin if it's pronouncable (and that's a big IF on some of those honkers) or appropriate to the situation. For instance I certainly wouldn't ask the clerk at Walmart where the Hemerocallis are. Pointless. Funny about prejudice though. I once asked a friend of mine why she didn't use the latin to talk about some of her plants when she knew what it was. She replied that the rest of her friends would think she was trying to be uppity. So now I realize that there are people out there who garden who don't want to know more then they already know and consider it snobbish to use a name they are not familiar with. I like to learn the latin if possible and how to pronounce it. But I guess there are two different ways to see things even in gardening...One of the strangest common name mix ups was when I lived in Indiana. I was told that some people refer to Bell Green Peppers as Green Mangos. Now that would be confusing.

This question is driving me crazy. Since none of us can think of a correct spring blooming perennial, I'm going on the assumption that they were started from seed indoors or in a greenhouse and are ahead of their bloom time. What about lupine? I know the leaves aren't lance-shaped, but if it was a quick look, I suppose they could be mistaken for such. Another is campanula glomerata. What about Agapanthus (hey, it starts with 'A')? The other thing I came up with, in addition to many of those the rest of you suggested, is a primula. Are there any "blue enough to be called blue" that send up a spike?

Forum etiquette requires some consideration for the time of those you are asking for help. Post threads asking questions about related plants, and limit the number to five or less. This way you are likely to get helpful responses. For now, this is the best I can do. You can still use forum (html) code to paste hyperlinks. Syntax: [_a href=URL of photo_]Short name[_/a_] Remove underscores. Paste in your link url. Type short name. Make sure the code works in PREVIEW. Spend the time to create clickable links and will you get more helpful responses than: First is a Cactus Last is not a Cactus Brad

Bachelor's buttons is a common name given to quite a number of flowers, including both annual and perennial Centaurea species. A small book could probably be written on the term. You may be sorry you asked--!--but here is a lengthy but interesting quotation from "The Plant-Lore and Garden-Craft of Shakespeare", written by the very erudite Canon Henry N. Ellacombe, Oriel College, Oxford. I have a reprint of the 1884 edition. Canon Ellacombe begins with a quotation from "The Merry Wives of Windsor", referring to a young bachelor carrying "buttons". Then he quotes another authority: "...the supposed allusion is to a rustic divination by means of the flowers, carried in the pocket by men and under the apron by women, as [the flower] was supposed to retain or lose its freshness according to the good or bad success of the bearer's amatory prospects." Canon Ellacombe continues in his own words: "The true Bachelor's Button of the present day [19c] is the double Ranunculus acris, but the name is applied very loosely to almost any small double globular flowers. In Shakespeare's time [late 16c-early 17c], it was probably applied still more loosely to any flowers in bud (according to the derivation from the French 'bouton'). Button is frequently so applied by the old writers [example]...and by Shakespeare [example]. It's interesting that he doesn't mention any Centaurea at all. He was quite a gardener so he would certainly have known Centaureas. I should add that I have been searching for the double Ranunculus acris for several years. It was an extremely popular old perennial, also called Sailor's Buttons. There's an interesting thread about it on the Perennials forum. Closer to home, Alice Morse Earle, who was from Massachusetts, wrote the following in "Old Time Gardens" in 1901, also since reprinted: "[Some say the bluest flower is] Centaurea cyanus or Bachelor's Buttons, a local American name for them, which is not even a standard folk name, since there are twenty-one English plants called Bachelor's Buttons. Ragged Sailor is another American name. Corn-flower, Blue-tops, Bluebonnets, Bluebottles, Loggerheads are old English names [for Centaurea]. Queerer still is the title Break-your-spectacles. Hawdods is the oldest name of all." If you imagine a small circle of glass, shattered from the center outwards, you can envision how the name break-your-spectacles came about. Plant lore is endlessly interesting.