Landscape designers are often asked why they use those weird botanical names for plants rather than common names. Well, aside from sounding undignified and sometimes rather silly, common names don't always adequately identify a plant.

An example would be "silk tree". There are two entirely different types of trees which share this moniker, Albizia jilibrissun, which has a very fine mimosa leaf, an umbrella canopy and pink powder puff flowers in the summer and Chorisia speciosa which has an upright grown habit, very large almost magnolia type flowers which come out in the fall and most distinctively, very large, very sharp thorns covering the trunk. If a landscape plan were to simply specify "silk tree", and you got the wrong one, you could have a thorny problem.

In truth, we use some plants just because it's fun to say the name and to impress our clients. But fortunately, our landscape designers are botanically
bi-lingual so that when you would like to see some calla lilies in your landscape you don't have to ask for Zantedeschia aethiopica.