still searching..

As to latin names, well, keep a little notebook - one with alphabetical order pages. Write down a plant each time you notice or think of one and look up and add its latin name (or ask us!) Then next time you see it or think about it, USE the latin name. Easy-peasy. Do it gradually and it will become second nature! She and your partner will be well-impressed! If it were me, I'd prefer a flowering plant to cut flowers, as they last longer. I'd love an orchid - but that's because I just love them anyway.( DO NOT buy her a Cactus LOL).

re learning botanical names, you will find that very often the names are highly descriptive of the plants (you might be surprised at how much latin you already know and is in common use in the English language) so for instance, something with yellow flowers will often have the word 'lutea' meaning yellow in the name e.g. Asphodeline lutea. A good example is Fraxinus excelsior, which is the ash tree - Fraxinus means fractious or easily broken and excelsior, well I think that's self explantory - so what you've got is a excellant and proud looking tree which is easily broken!

I wrote a blog several months ago on how plants are named which you might find useful. As to learning the Latin names, if you learn two per week, you will have over one hundred in your memory bank by this time next year!