4/00-16 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For more information contact: Christine Kelleher, 800-232-9557, Ext. 512 or Gary Doerr, 916-716-1889 This is one in a periodic series of articles by respected garden writers throughout North America. You can expect others on topics of similar interest on a timely basis. Feel free to use this release in its entirety or in part, with or without the author's byline. Janet Macunovich is a professional garden designer and writer from southeast Michigan. Her articles appear weekly in the Detroit News. She has written two books, "Easy Garden Design" and "Caring for Perennials" and has had articles in numerous horticultural publications.

Embarrassing but undeniable - I talk to plants. We sometimes spend eight or ten hours together so comments come naturally:

"Well, aren't you the charmer?"

"Whew! You are definitely having a bad hair day."

"Is that a mite problem making you so pale and dusty?"

It's only right to address such close acquaintances by their full and proper names. To call Campanula carpatica "Bellflower," lumping it in with the hundreds in that clan, is like someone calling me "Yank" - appropriate but hardly personal. So I learned each plant's full name as I would a new friend's: "Hello, Persicaria affine. Oops, pardon me, Persicaria speciosum! It's that family resemblance, those red flower spikes and your general willingness to grow well in so many places that confused me."

I'm not alone in this behavior. There are others doing something that's got to be an offshoot - building garden combinations based on name.

My "beautiful losers" corner is an example. Its inhabitants are pretty but create an inside joke for anyone who considers their proper names. A False Cypress, and two yellow Foxgloves have far more dimension as Chamaecyparis obtusa, Digitalis ambigua, and Digitalis obscura - beauty that's obtuse, ambiguous and obscure.

Elsewhere I have chosen plants for family members' names. Sisters Diane, Cathy and Marguerite are there as Dianthus plumarius, Catharanthus roseus, and Anaphalis margaritacea. Stephanandra incisa represents husband Steve, and Coreopsis 'Maroon' my son Cory.

Another area commemorates places I've visited: Astilbe 'Deutschland', Juniperus 'Calgary Carpet,' etc.

Lately I'm having fun with the latest perennials from Bloom's of Bressingham. I'm putting some of them together in a garden:

Hemerocallis 'Lady Lucille', a red-orange Daylily named for Lucille Ball, will grow alongside Crocosmia 'Vulcan' - and I'll see Lucy in a natural disaster movie spoof! Helenium 'Bruno' will be the comic villain sidekick. For a love interest, Campanula 'Purple Pixie' can sidle up to Hemerocallis 'Tinkerbell,' making "Tink" jealous. Thus Penstemon 'Purple Passion' must be nearby.

The great thing is that I can't go wrong with a name like Bloom's - I've admired and studied these plants to know they're great performers. Since I selected first for flower color and form, they'll look good together even if no one catches my jokes.

And if the planting seems a bit "off," I can still add Heuchera 'Harmonic Convergence' to help smooth things out!

This theme's possibilities are endless and add a pleasing mental challenge to garden design. Give it a try!