where do I find flowers named after people, e.g., Bethel

I started a memorial garden. I live in zone 4a. I have some plants from my mothers garden but no plants from my other loved ones. I know some general information on the plants they loved -roses, pinkcolors,purples etc but I can't remember exact plants. My daughter also just had a friend commit suicide as a result of depression and she asked to plant a tall bearded iris for him (he was tall, slender/skinny and had long hair) Where can I find information on plants named after people? I am pretty bad with using the exact wording to get any results from the various search engines. I found a polly- after my mom but am looking for plants named- BETHEL, VANCE, FLORENCE, CECILEA, ELZY (found rose bushes named -sven, oly and lena-close?!)BLAKE, EDITH, CATHY, DANIEL, MARIA, CONCEPCION. thanks for your help

Open the Guides and Information tab

"Click here to search for plants"

Go to Plant files and type in the name you're looking for in the cultivar space.

Typing in Bethel gave several possibilities.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=bethel&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bblank_cultivar%5D=&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=rating&images_prefs=both&Search=Search

From a quick google search there is a

Florence iris (Iris florentina),
Florence Rose and
A Florence Nighting gale rose.

For Cecilia
there is a Chrysanthemum and also a Beth Chrysanthemum. both are listed
http://www.acornfarms.com/mumsreferenceguidePURPLE.htm

The way I was searching for them was to put a flower name in then the the persons name and then if Google was returning stuff not related to what I wanted I'd ad flower or plant or something like that in an atempt to to narrow or reorder the search.
-Doug

There is an red Delicious Apple called Vance and also cultivars of Wheat and Soybean by the name of Vance.

"cultivar name" seams to be a good place to start as it is returning me only a limited number of pages. The quotes are important. Fir example I found the above examples by using "cultivar Vance". For Elzy I used "cultivar Elsie" and there was a few returns , but I didn't persue them. -Doug

What a lovely idea, I'll have to keep this in mind!

I think grannymarsh's suggestion is the easiest way, if you use the specific search in Plant Files and put the name you want in the cultivar field (leave everything else blank) that'll pull up exactly what you need, any other search you do on Google or anywhere else you're going to have to wade through a lot of useless results. Doug's suggestion of searching for "cultivar xxx" will narrow things down, but you'll also miss a lot because a lot of sites that talk about plant names won't mention the word cultivar at all so they won't show up as search results. So I think Plant Files is the way to go, but since you're not a subscriber it may take you a few days to get through all the names you want to look at since you're limited on how many searches you can do each day.

grannymarsh

Thank-You so much for your quick response!

The hyper-link was perfect.This is exciting to be able to find.

The suggestion to use the name in the cultivar space sure narrowed my search.

susiebos - I also have a memory garden and don't often find a plant with the right name, or I'll find the name but the plant doesn't seem right. I plant things that remind me of that person. For example, I was looking for a plant in memory of my grandniece Ashley. I wanted a butterfly bush, since she loved butterflies and there was a story to go along with her love of butterflies. When I was at the garden center looking at butterfly bushes the whole area filled with butterflies, but they weren't landing on the plants I was looking at they were landing on the asters behind me. Guess what I brought home?!!! ^_^

Doug9345

Thank-You! The tip about the quotes on the search is very helpful.

Great idea to include edible food plants. I didn't even think about that.

I'm going to need a much bigger garden I think ; )

ecrane3

Thank-You! I have been looking for these plants for months on my oun.(sure helped the winter go by quicker)

Thanks also for the tip on the limit of searches per day- I type one fingered/slow and would have thought I had taken to long typing so I was cut off.
: )

jasmerr

Thank-You for sharing that beautiful story. I smiled and teared up reading it.

what color asters did you get?

Purple!