Anthology is actually "A collection of most beautiful and best pieces from poetry and prose", and here and there Herman refers to his naming.

Thus the cultivar 'François Villon' got its name because the plant in question was a pronounced pendant and the "Ballad of a hanged" was one of the works of this French poet from 1431.

'Twiggy' can still remember the elderly among us as the English supermodel from the sixties and seventies, a women's name for a new cultivar.

The underlying idea was therefore the growth of the cultivar.

Twiggy is the English expression for "full twigs".

'L'Ingènue' was apparently a novelty in which Herman came under the charm of his own creation. The name is the French expression for "female innocence".

With 'Nonchalance' can be meant nonchalant, but the name of a perfume is something feminine.

What name should you give to your hundredth new cultivar? That probably will not have been such an easy task. Reportedly, the De Graaff family came up with the luminous idea to use our old name for a currency Florijn. A Florin is one hundred cents, so it became 'Gerharda's Florijn'. That 'Golden Jubilee' was the fiftieth cultivar of Herman speaks for itself.

His befriended overseas colleague of hybridizers honored Herman with the plants 'John Wright' and 'Edwin's Choice', for Edwin Goulding, who searched the plants as seedlings.

If you look at Herman's list of plant names, you see that Herman gave more Indonesian names to his plants. Herman used to have a lot of childhood friends who had come over from Indonesia after the transfer of sovereignty and an old-uncle of Herman was formerly part of the Indian government.

If you compare the meaning of the names with the photographs and properties of the plants in question, Herman's line of thinking can be somewhat followed when assigning the names.

Garuda is a mythical creature in Hindu mythology that represents half a human being and half eagle.

How do you get the cultivar name 'Piet Hein'? In the form of the long pointed curved sepals of this cultivar, Herman saw the shape of an enterhook, so this cultivar was named after the pirate Piet Hein. If you have not yet studied Frisian, the cultivar name 'Earrebarre' is Frisian for stork or lucky charm.

Cultivars whose flowerpipes and sepals show a somewhat trumpet-like appearance were appointed by Herman as 'Highland Pipes' the Scottish bagpipes, 'Northumbrian Pipes', to a bagpipe from a certain region from Scotland, 'Small Pipes', 'Maori Pipes', 'Uillean Pipes' and 'War Pipes'.

The sight of the outstanding trumpet-shaped flowers in the staggered bunches that hang downward indeed often evokes the association of the pipes that protrude from the bagpipes. All this indicates that Herman is a lover of bagpipe music. And that is indeed true. His hundredth new cultivar celebrated Herman with two Scottish pipers in his garden.

Herman used to often make dialects under the title;

"From the Fuchsia kitchen". This resulted in the cultivar name 'Haute Cuisine'. The cultivar 'Summerdaffodil', which means summer daffodil, Brings us back to the family business of the bulb growers and hybridizers Fam. H. de Graaff and Sons.

At the bottom of the paper bags in which the flower bulbs used to be sent stood;

"Product of Holland" printed the title Herman still uses for his column in Fuchsiana. He also gave the name to one of his new cultivars.

A spade is called a graph in the dialect of the bulb region.

In the family arms of the family

de Graaff are two crossed spades and in the emblem and trademark of the flower bulb empire a golden spade was depicted that produced the cultivar name 'Golden Spade'.

All Herman cultivars are, as it should be, registered in the register of the American Fuchsia Society. Something that Herman constantly promoted among his fellow hybridizers.

Herman was one of the people who made it possible to approve new cultivars at the time and he promoted it full of verve.

For years he was part of the Fuchsia committee of the Permanent Inspection Committee in Aalsmeer. Both as a member and also as the chairman of this committee, he and his colleagues approved more than a thousand new Dutch cultivars.

He initially also commissioned his own plants by this committee. Mutual rivalry in the inspection committee made him decide at one point that he would no longer have his plants inspected. Because of his long career in this committee and as a hybridizer, he had also gained enough knowledge and experience to be able to judge his own plants whether they brought something new and useful to the market for fuchsia enthusiasts.

If there is a Dutch hybridizer who has gained international name recognition with his Hybridizing products, but also as a hybridizer, that is Herman de Graaff. The many contacts he has with foreign hybridizers and enthusiasts indicate that Herman is regarded worldwide as a leading hybridizer and fuchsia expert. The French distinction mentioned in chapter 1 is an example of this.

At the time that the cuttings growers still just spent paper catalogs, you noticed that Herman's plants were listed in the catalogs almost immediately the year after the introduction. After the turnaround to the digital era, the familiarity and the related popularity of Herman's plants became even clearer. Worldwide you see pictured plants on the websites of nurseries and enthusiasts and are offered for sale. From New Zealand to Finland and from America to Japan, on all websites you will find cultivars such as' Greenpeace ',

' Vuurwerk', 'Gerharda's Panache', 'Machu Picchu', 'Minirose', 'Tsjiep', 'Insulinde' and 'Loeky ' against.

All plants that have established themselves just like cultivars like 'Beacon' and 'Koralle' that did more than 100 years ago and are still popular.

The characteristic of Herman to obtain different forms of appearance with certain basic crosses through input from other or more species, made sure that for every fuchsial lover something in the assortment of cultivars of Herman could be found that appealed to them.

Except for 'Ursula', almost every cultivar can still be found somewhere in a collection. At times you see on shows and on open garden days cultivars of Herman of which you think; "which was that" and, "oh yeah, I did not think it still existed".

In America, 'Pink Rain' was a topper right after he was introduced, but he still can not be ignored from the collections there.

In England the small-flowered cultivars like 'Tsjiep'. 'Galadriel' and 'Minirose' gradually became an integral part of the collections of fuchsia enthusiasts who cultivated incredibly beautiful and richly flowering plants there.

'Maori Pipes', 'Highland Pipes' and 'Northumbrian Pipes' are also very popular.

The last cultivar of Herman came out in 2007.

Or Herman still hybridize? Surely.

Hybridizinging is something that is in you after so many years. You keep wondering things and want to try that out. Whether Herman adds one or more new cultivars to the fuchsia market that is currently being flooded with new cultivars, that is not likely or it must be something very special.

A yellow fuchsia as apotheosis perhaps? Who knows!

Author: M.A. Soeters

Layout: S. van Schaik

 © Fuchsia's of the World