What's the most you ever paid for a plant?

255 SEK (28 €) for a Magnolia hypoleuca. :/

I saw an Acer palmatum (J Maple)for sale in a really cheap wholesale nursery last year with a price tag of £5,000. I don't expect it included delivery. I've had a shot at growing A. palmatum a couple of times (for the princely sum of £2.00 apiece) niether survived a year, last year I bought several pots of seedling A. palmatums for a lot less and they're doing well (touch wood), I've the time to watch them grow if they're so inclined, and find that is a good 80% of the fun in growing plants.

John - arghhhhhhhhhh, now my mind is whirling with: "what if's?" Do we have any DG members in Brazil? I met the only one in Japan, so maybe Brazil is next! Are you coming along? ;-)

Oops, hijack. Apologies.

It's amazing what people will pay for - if you want something and get pleasure out of it, the cost can be a secondary consideration. I'm amazed at the examples here where trees go up to thousands of dollars or pounds sterling. I must be cheap. Definitely an interesting thread - as I look at my hosta shopping list, I am starting to reflect - "why am I ready to pay so much?". No meaningful reason, other than it's something I want.

So question here for people - if you have a $5K tree in the yard and you're selling your house, does that up the value of the house?

200.00 for a daylily fan!!!
FAINT!
i love my day-lilies but 200.00 will buy alot of groceries!
I could never justify that!
But i bet they are BEAUTIFUL daylilies!

sbarr, that would depend upon the prospective buyer, I think. It might not make one iota of difference to some and then be THE selling point to others. Having trees and neat landscaping overall certainly makes a good case for more attention being given to a property, but if the prospect would be happy with green concrete to avoid mowing, it might seem intimidating. An expensive tree alone probably won't have a great impact.

lolol, when we bought this house, the "clincher" for me was the huge pile of decaying leaves - our realtor thought I was NUTS to get so excited over compost.

sbarr, we have Lucia and babalu (Antonio) in Brazil. Antonio has been very generous in sharing seeds, so maybe... And Lucia lives in Rio... I'd like to go! And yes, if I were buying the house, the tree would add value!

notmartha, a $200 daylily is just a new introduction, highly priced as there are probably few of them and a high demand. Many new varieties are here today, gone tomorrow, giving way to some of the tried and true ones. I agree, save the money for groceries, and wait a year or two as the prices drop way down.

Apart from trees? I think the most I paid was $17 for a Hosta 'Northern Halo' at least 20 years ago. I mistakenly thought that it would multiply madly as do the 'green' and 'green and white' ones; if it even survived this winter, it probably still has the usual one or two eyes.

Ah, but supply and demand come into play here with those $200 daylilies, even if they end up to be stinkers.

It won't take long for those lucky enough to get a fan of a highly coveted daylily to get back what they paid for that plant. One or two increases and a handful of seeds to sell and you've recouped your investment, plus maybe a little extra $$$ so you can buy MORE daylilies! I let my hobby pay for itself.

Remember Beanie Babies? There was nothing all that great about them unless you were ten years old, but everyone wanted them because everyone ELSE wanted them. That made them scarce and drove the prices way up. Same premise at play here with newly introduced daylilies.

I had NO idea that lily bulbs and other inidvidual plant specimens could cost so much! As was stated, cost is relative. If something is new, rare, or in extremely limited supply, the price is going to be much higher.

Another good point is that we will tend to pay what we can for an item for which we have dearly wished. Price is relative there also.

It still does amaze me, though, to see a plant, perhaps in a catalog, with some fantastic price tag, only to see the same plant, later, sold at a local Home Depot store for an extremely low price. It pays to shop around.

I'm glad I started this thread. The reading has been quite interesting. Whoo-wee! At the very least I learned a little and don't feel QUITE so silly now that I know that I am not alone. LOL. Perhaps I can take the "Kick Me" sign off my back.

I one SAW a new breed of Hosta for $1,200.00!!! It sure didn't look that special to me, can't even remember it's name.

Orchids can often command VERY high prices because of their rarity and the demand for them. The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (recently adapted into a movie, appropriately titled 'Adaptations') is an interesting read on the subject.

Going back a ways in history we have the tulipmania (sometimes termed tulipomania when tulip bulbs were so sought after that people staked (and lost) their family's fortune on them.

Most expensive was $499 for a fairly mature weeping hemlock. That included delivery, which was the only way they would guarantee it.

Most expensive non-shrub was $46 (including shipping) for Corydalis 'Blue Panda'. It died because the squirrels dug it up every day for 2 weeks. Never again.