A yew is nice as long as yew look after your taxus.

Ethan

Mugwort (Artemesia) is always amusing.

More amusing names:How about red hot poker. Also I thought of Japanese blood grass. In the south, rain lilies are often called "naked boys" by older gardeners because of the flowers appearing first with no foliage. As a child I thought that was extremely funny.

Dandelions are "pis-en-lit" (pee-a-bed) in French.
I think my favorite is "money plant".

Here is a link that might be useful: Lunaria annua

We like fairy wands, bugbane, snake weed, soap wort, spider wort and naked ladies (LeAnn, those are the same as your naked boys).

Holly

I like some of the latin names. My favorite is "Dizygotheca elegantissima", the false aralia. It simply feels good in the mouth. :-0

Here's a few:
Dragon Tongue (bush bean)
Peek A Boo (flower)
Walking Stick Kale
Tommy Toes Cherry Tomato
Hungarian Finger Fruit (scallop type squash which to my mind looks kind of like a Pikachu from the Pokemon show)
Greasy beans (lots of varieties)
Rattlesnake bean
Rat Tail Radish
Lion's Ear (herb)
Tigger Melon

My very favorite - Poached egg plant, limnanthus... it is such a funny looking flower. More silly veggies, too - runner beans, Thumbelina carrots (I always make my 3year dance around the thumbelina's!). I have a 'grumpy' fuchsia, a 'creamsicle' brug, 'sugar baby' watermelon, and always get a laugh out of 'yucca'. Of course, kids will end up making their own names for those plants - marigolds turned into 'face puffs' before I could convince him otherwise ;-)

Best of luck! Great idea!
Samanthaz

I've been thinking how much fun it would be to plant a bed with black dragon coleus, dragon's blood sedum, mountain laurel "elf" and viking ship heucharella. Kind of a medieval theme, I guess!

TR

I've been eyeballing an "Easter Egg" plant....supposed to look like it's name......

Speaking of eyeballs, I saw an "eyeball plant" in the Park seed catalog. I also saw a Coleus 'Inky Fingers' somewhere.

I'm going to put a few new plants in my daughter's garden: Asclepias 'Cinderella' and Spirea 'Little Princess'. It doesn't hurt that they're pink, too. (Can you tell she's four?)

Joann... what IS it with four year old girls and pink?!?!

Hee hee, I sure didn't raise her to be like that! When she was just two, she suddenly refused to put on her blue pajamas one night. She told me "I no be little girl in that!" It's been pink and purple ever since.

But if planting pink flowers is all it takes to get her interested in gardening, I don't mind!

In a garden book I ran across mouse-tail plant

I know this is an old post, but I sure enjoyed reading it! We have a flower bed in our yard that gives us secret giggles...we planted the smoke tree next to the burning bush and the red hot poker, red hot sally salvia and pyracantha. I was on the garden tour, and my daughters waited and waited for a visitor to comment on the combination.
When I planted daylilies, I honored my oldest daughter by planting Rose Emily next to Femme Fatale, Wild One, Cleopatra, Lady Emily, Renegade Lady and Just For Fun.
Emily is actually a serious student and a young political activist who enjoys a good joke.
cindi
--

Cindy in KS,

I live in KS too, northeast area between KCK and Lawrence.
I've never visited this forum before but enjoyed your ideas.
Hope you don't mind but I would like to "borrow" your idea of the smoke tree, burning bush, red hot poker,etc as a combination. My DH & DS are volunteer firefighters and I have a couple of fire boots that I want to use to combine with appropriate "hot" plants in a garden bed. I also have some other "firefighting" accesories that can be used in there also for accent, such as large old brass hose nozzles and fittings, old fire hose(thinking of placing a soaker hose in or just under it for actual watering). I was having trouble of thinking of other plants to use in the bed. Could only come up with red hot poker & firecracker plant. I even put in a new burning bush in another bed and DH & DS kept teasing me asking if my bush was on fire yet?? DOH! Never even thought to use it in combo with the firefighting stuff and other plants. Now I just need to find out what a smoke tree is. Can you enlighten me?

Thanks
MaryK

Cupids dart. My kids think it's funny.

Among our natives, monkey flower and piggy-back plant are pretty cute! How about a garden with animal-related theme?
Butterfly bush, dog tooth, tiger lily etc.

Swtmary, That firefighter bed sounds so fun...what a great idea!

This thread is inspiring, I will keep these in mind for new beds this year

I thought of this while off in another forum...how about a barnyard bed, with hens and chicks, lambs ears, colts foot,etc...anybody have ones to add to that list? I think my 3 yo would love it!

Don't forget Prairie Smoke for the firefighter bed!

Marie

I see this post has been going a while, but I just stopped by. I have carried out the "animal theme" for 4 years now in our children's garden (I work in a public garden). I have a number of perennials, gooseneck loosestrife, lambs ear, worm wood, tiger lily,cardinal flower and so on. Because I have a greenhouse, I also get to use some annuals and tropicals, bird of paradise, snake plant, dragon tree and so on. I have a pretty good list if anyone needs to email me. I am trying to get really cool signs with the animials cut out to add to the effect.

For your barnyard theme garden bed, don't forget MILKweed, BUTTERcups, and EGGplant.

I just came across "sneezewort" at a local nursery!

Lamb's Ear (stachys), which kids will LOVE to touch as well as say ;) ... wormwood, Bee Balm, and... my daughter's favorite, SURPRISE LILIES (also known as "Naked Ladies", which makes her blush and giggle).

My kids are bilingual- hebrew/english. This makes for a WHOLE lotta fun in the garden. The mulberry is called 'toot' in hebrew- they always laugh and there are endless jokes. Many names are the same but with a different accent, irises for example are 'eerooseem' (phonetically) so my oldest one laughs and bends down to the bush putting it in front of her 'eye', that is to say for her it's an 'eye-ris', so cute.

Morning glory- periwinkle- love-in-a-mist- heavenly bamboo- goldfish plant- needle grass- balloon flower- plumbago

Oh now you've got me going! Great thread!

A new subscriber ... as of today!! Skimmed through the postings and don't remember seeing: Snapdragon, Pot of Gold, Feverfew, MonksHood, Sweet William, Johnny Jump-up's, Jack in the Pulpit, silver dollar, Chinese lanterns, baby's breath, forget-me-nots, BloodRoot, Queen Anne's Lace, and black-eyed Susan.

LadyBird Poppies, they really resemble ladybug colorings too!

How about "Bat Face" (cuphea)? This plant is awesome! The flowers REALLY look like a bat's face!

What a wonderful thread! i'm getting all kinds of ideas for our school garden.

"Envy" zinnia is fun, i think, not often you see green flowers.

Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, which is nicer than Love-lies-bleeding.

Hi,
I love this thread. Here's another similar thread http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/mwgard/msg0523334313640.html . I was searching for a thread that I remembered where someone was starting a zoo garden, the list of plants with animal names got quite long, but I couldn't find that one.
How about a "rock garden" for the teens; with plants that are named after songs. We started one, but right now it's mostly day lilies. You cold look at their names all day.
Catrina

There's a siberian iris called 'Temper Tantrum' - my kids think that name is very funny, and want me to plant one, even though the joke's on them!

I also had some fun with daylily names one long winter evening - did you know that there are THOUSANDS of named cultivars, and you could make a daylily garden tailored to anyone's quirks/interests/personality? Here's an example, using my little daughter:

Precious One
Sent From Heaven
Twirl Girl
Blonde Baby
Lollipop
Melody Lane (she loves music)
Pearl Island (her middle name is Pearl)
Lavender Angel (little girls and purple again)
Ginger Cookie
My Way
Blueberries and Cream
Butterfly Kisses
Cutie Pie

You could have a LOT of fun, just with one kind of plant.
The same thing could be done with irises, too, or roses.

Laurelin

I never thought of a theme garden in this way!! I had already started a "love" garden without realizing it. I have Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate, Bleeding Hearts, Love Lies Bleeding, Forget Me-Nots, and Honesty.I think a Monk's Hood might be in order, and some Baby's Breath too.
How about a 'Gone With the Wind' theme with Scarlett O'Hara morning glories, mint, cotton, 'Tara'-gon?
How about 'Wizard of Oz' with Lion's Tail, poppies, Witch's Broom? There must be other great plants too. My daughter and I have been having fun looking for 'munchkins'.
Here's a plant name that made me giggle: aquilegia flabellata; too many sweets will make me flab-allota!! I can't wait to give garden tours. Thanks for the terrific inspiration!!

I was thinking of plants like Carlos Lantana and Magilla Perilla. Can't think of any others like this but maybe some of you can.