TheMondayGarden.com

Plants are divided into families (e.g. rose, honeysuckle, heath), then genus, then species, then variety, then cultivar; and it’s all in Latin, which is supposed to make it easier. There are hundreds of plant families.

In any case, depending on who’s counting, the rose family has over 100 genus and 2000 to 3000 species, more than half of which are trees and shrubs. Most are native to the Northern Hemisphere, and many show up in our gardens and grocery stores.

Delicious non-natives, now in our fruit basket, include raspberry, strawberry, apple, pear, peach, cherry, plum, quince, apricot, and nectarine. The almond is also a relative. The native fruits include aronia, crabapple, beach plum, wild strawberry, blackberry, chokecherry, loganberry, thimbleberry, salmonberry, sandcherry, and serviceberry.

We also need to be grateful to the rose family for some of our most wonderful native tress, including mountain ash, hawthorn and shadblow.

More information:

a good list: http://plantsdatabase.com/b/Rosaceae.

in Spanish: http://www.arbolesornamentales.com/Rosaceae.htm.

American natives: http://www.treeguide.com/Family.asp?FamilyID=241&Region=NorthAmerican.

Since this is a short article, here’s another peach picture.

And here's the peach in late August

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What the readers said:

Interesting. I had no Idea. In my yard, there is apple, crab apple, plum, tea roses, miniature roses, primroses, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and wild strawberries, at least - it must be a significant proportion of all the plants. Bill (CO) [don't forget to also count the spiraea, potentilla, cotoneaster, cinquefoil, and pyrocanthus]

Thank you for the picture. The family now owns my Grandmother's home in South Bridgton, Maine. We put a hammock under two of the crabapple trees. Leslie (CT)

Roger and I were just talking about crabapples this weekend. The cherry blossoms at the BBG didn't quite make it for this weekend but we did see crabapple. Kal (NY)

I really enjoy the articles, so please keep them coming. Santiago (NJ)

This article is up on The Caretaker website at: http://wmuma.com/caretaker/animals/birdsberrybushSS.html. Walter (ONT)

[Following the article, I got a winterthur viburnum, and some wonderful Raintreenursery.com low-bush blueberries. Then it occurred to me that mini roses, blueberries and heaths/heathers look together, and that they share a liking for sun, good drainage, and peaty soil. So I dug a new bed right below my mother's dinning room window. Right now, I'm looking for the some low growing plants with good seeds for the birds to mix in - suggestions welcome. Sue]