was Hydrangea 'Bailmer' now comment

In a message dated 2/10/03 5:19:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
lindsey@mallorn.com writes:


> The breeders don't necessarily think of marketing when they are naming 
> their plant and the marketers don't often like the names the breeders pick. 

> :-)  So, we get two names.

And cynical me, I thought they were picking names that weren't as 
appealing for the general market so that their trademarked names
could bring in more money in a more 'monopolized' market when the
plant patent expires.>>>>>>>>>>>

Those names can come from anywhere.  I read Avent's column in NMPRO a few 
years ago and I don't think things have changed a bit.

Here is, in a small way, how it can happen apart from more sophisticated 
marketing ploys.  My niece's husband pots and sells around five hundred or 
more pots of Hosta undulata every spring.  This plant is cheap and available 
plus nearly every gardener in the East knows it to be indestructible.  He 
puts the "mother" clumps behind our barn sometimes and breaks them up in the 
fall repotting to "generous" six inch containers.  In the spring they emerge 
as attractive curly clumps and sell immediately.

Customers ask him for the name of this plant.  He would tell them Hosta 
undulata.  Then he would sometimes add univitatta or mediovariegata or some 
other descriptive term, naming the plant correctly.    Several forms exist.  
Nobody lining the driveway with hosta wants undulata, they want Hosta 
'Patriot' or Hosta 'Sum and Substance' or one more rare as appearing in a 
spring issue of a garden magazine.    Still they want to pay three for 10.00 
( a lot considering that tons of it is behind our barn multiplying like 
rabbits).  So..............Michael named it Hosta 'Alice".  The clumps he 
started with came from Aunt Alice's garden, actually tossed out of Alice's 
garden.  In smaller print he put Hosta undulata.

Hosta 'Alice" goes for 5.00 a six inch pot and the customer is happier than 
with undulata.  With the cost of pots and medium, Alice may go up this 
spring.  Alice is the nursery joke as customers are always told the truth but 
our Michael is the marketing "genius loci".

You could call this plant Hosta Jim or James or Robert and nobody can stop 
you from what I can see.    As in all markets, in the end the customer rules. 
 In the HD this Hosta is called "green and white hosta" and they sell more 
than Michael does.  If Michael wants to stay in business, he will have to 
sell some plants.

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever heard of a plant patent case in the courts?

I do think plants should bear one name but it is easy to see how the 
principle splinters in the market.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

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