Hardcore Plant Collectors ...ARE YOU OUT THERE !!! :)

This message was edited Jul 19, 2005 9:11 PM

Hi Chooch!!!
You are not alone!!!! Although I have no where near the plants you have...one day...and at the rate I'm going probably not that far off, LOL. ;)

YOU HAVE a most excellent attitude Jody :)) So many plants and so little time ;)

i think my friends think I am crazy. I try not to talk too mmuch about seed germination with some because they start to roll their eyes. Thats why its good to have thse forums to connect with other crazies.

I like the rare & unusual stuff! People think I'm crazy! BUT they always want to see what I'm growing. My family all think we've gone off the edge. They all thing the plants are "nice" but not worth the work. I gave my mother in law over 50 small daylilies this summer to put in front of her house. Well she didn't keep up the weeding and this fall she weeded, pulling the daylilies! She said "I couldn't tell the plants from the weeds so I pulled them all".

They summer I planted every kind of sunflower I could. All kinds of new and non gardeners were amazed at how beautiful they were. They all wanted to know how I got all the different colors. I told them I soak them in dye for just the right amount of time. To much and the seeds dies, to little and the color won't take. I told them that the sunflower seeds only take up reds, oranges and white. They know what a serious garden nut I am and they beleived me!!LOL!!!! I gave them some of my sunflower seeds some regular and some with reds. I told them to try putting them in red food coloring this spring and see what happens this summer! LOL!!! I love a good joke!

Anyway this fall I bought over 20 trees and most of them I have never seen anywhere near my house. That was the main reason I bought them. I am pushing some of them 1-2 zone.

I'm a 'wannabe' hardcore.i just get so worried i gonna kill something... my ole man has found me in the yard at midnight tuck'in plants/trees 'cause , well i just can't kill anything alive!!...how do yah get over that??

KimC

Kim,

We got 2 hard frost this year in mid august. My garden is way to big to cover. So my hubby and I built small fires all over the garden and tended to them all night long! And we did lose anything. But once again our neighbors and family thought we were insane! But as I sat in the garden eating fresh veggies and looking at all of the beautiful flowers I once again decided who cares!

I know what you mean about zone pushing, Once had a lemon tree, from seed to live 3 years(supermarket variety) in my wood-heated cabin(unheated when I'm away). Finally died at about 5 F. I still have a tropical kiwi vine outside that I don't know if it's male or female, it's never had any year old wood to bloom on! but it's fuzzy and all, makes a lot of shade by august. There's something about the look on peoples' face when they say-those won't grow here- and I say it's 10 years old!

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I love all plants and collect every kind of interesting plant I see. But I'm not satisfied to simply have one of each variety - I have to propogate them all the time.

Because I have moved so many times, I've never been able to collect outdoor perennials, so I've been stuck with houseplants. I must have at least 40 different kinds of houseplants, coming and going. I bought a book: "Making More Plants" by Ken Druse. It is an excellent book on all the different kinds of propogation. I go bananas reproducing all my houseplants!!

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this web site is making me crazier. I am like a kid with big eyes in a candy store. I ordered some seeds..not knowing for the most part what i was getting. They arrived and now I am doing the reseach. some are seeds that have to sit at 38 d for 4 wks,then 68 d for 6 weeks and they may bloom in 5 yrs. I can see the keeping track of where any thing is at one time,and at what stage will be interesting. i have post it notes all over reminding me when to do what. i have to admit i am overwhelmed.

I told my husband it was simple-- I want at least one of everything. But then we get to the propagation thing. Some things are just so easy. I can't help it. And then came the trading forums and the get-togethers. You know I have lots of things growing wild on my place other people are looking for. Mullein, persimmon, who woulda thought people would trade for that? Cool huh? Mostly I need more hours in the day and a bigger budget wouldn't hurt either. If I get a little tired I go read a forum about someone that is just SSOOO excited about a trade ,a new houseplant, or perennial they got. It doesn't really matter if it is a tree, houseplant, vegetable, annual or perennial I love them all. Admittedly I really don't have anything rare -- or at least I don't think I do. My dream is to build a greenhouse. I got Spring Fever really bad. Anyway, one place I worked people told me I was wierd. I'd say just happy.

for Chooch, tried to send an e mail thru your seed site but it wouldn't go thru..anyway i need help on how to germinated sweet cicely. Everything i read sound complicated, but since you have seeds i figure you are in the know.

I feel sooooo at home here! Yes chooch, theres more of us than we realize!! I thought I was the worst... until my friend emailed me from california. She went to the grocery store and amongst her edible refrigerator items were some prickly pear leaves. Well, she couldnt bring herself to eat them. So she planted them!! (Im a bit envious our Carolina grocery stores dont carry them!) Then again, where would I find the room!??!?! Youve got me beat with your numbers (800??!!) But you know its pretty bad when you keep expanding and adding constructionally due to *plants* and not children!! (yes, I am guilty!)

KathyJo,

Never ever be happy with just one of anything. Plants get lonely and need at least 2 or 3 friends. LOL!!

Hello Chooch and all of you gardeners,

I used to think (and so did my husband) that i was the only crazy gardener on earth. Thanks to the internet and great gardening sites i found out there are A LOT of us and even my husband had to admit i was not that crazy!
Started my garden with "common" plants, i wanted something "different", that's how i became addicted to plants and seeds.
Now i ask myself whats common and what's rare? What's common to me in the Netherlands could be rare in your little part of the world and visa versa.
It took me a while to figger out what zone pushing means, well i think i got it now! I plant a lot of things outside and i am amazed how many plants survive a little frost for a few days eventhough some are called house plants. First i tried to give them some protection but they would all die. So i just left them uncovered over the winter and to my surprise it worked. As long as the roots didn't get too wet they would do just fine.

another shameless plug from me!!

I'm a serious plantaholic and summer is a bad time for my bank account. Plantaholic is also my alias elsewhere in the e-garden world. here is a link to my photo albums which contain photos - what else!! - of flowers in my garden.

I need to warn all fellow gardeners that plant collecting is a serious addiction.

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=1389828

Mark
aka plantaholic
Northern Ireland

MzMunchkin....
ONLY 800 !!! Well okay THAT IS ALOT. Bet I'm right up there with you...I keep trying to find people who are will to take some of these seeds (unknowns!!),grow a few,and help me figure out WHAT THE HECK THEY ARE.All my neightbors tell me their 'weeds'.Well yah know what they say...'a weed to one,a wildflower to another'...Any takers out there??

The sun was out today!!!!
kim

Boy can I identify with everyone. I used to garden on a postage stamp. But I couldn't stop buying, trading or starting plants from seeds (nor did I want too!)so I extended my gardens into the neighbors yard. I had to grow lots of things in pots because I had run out of room everywhere else. We moved to an acre last year and all my plants came with me. We dug them up (with the help of a gardening friend that I met on the web!)in the middle of February.Took 4 truck loads,2 van loads plus I filled the back of our Jeep a few times and I sent my friend home with a truck load and a half for helping. What wasn't in pots was wintered over in 8 yards of sawdust that cost $160.00 to have delivered! When spring came I continued to trade, buy and start from seeds even more plants and I had hundreds to get planted in the ground as it was. I still have some plants in the sawdust a year later. I have a growroom (a converted shed with heat and lights)so I can over-winter my tenders. I haven't counted my different plants in a couple of years but I wouldn't be surprised if I might have somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 plants. I'm seriously addicted to collecting plants and gardening.I've been called weird too!But I find it weird when someone has no interest in growing things! And I'm so happy to see so many here that are just like me. :)

Hi gang,
nice to know that there are lots of other crazies out there.
I have nearly 70 spp of trees and shrubs stratifying right now
Rich

Keep on inspiring me , all of you plant freakazoids !! I LOVE IT !! More , More , More !!! Rock On !! :)

I don't want to call myself a plant collector. Not yet anyway. I am sorry to disappoint all of you but…
AH! There is a but, I don't know what would happen to me in 30 years… when I would be able to say that I garden since 40 years!
I always love plants, so I had more than 600 pots of everything I could put my hand on in a little apartment. I didn't propagate at that time just buying.
Then the house…each year the garden area double…. after 5 years when the garden had some kind of look, I moved.
Here I am with a little half of an acre. I gained one zone and the passion doesn't let go. I like to read but can't stop read about horticulture. More I read, more I suffer than I won't have time to know and own all of what I am dreaming. Already I know that my yard is too small. I want my garden to be luxuriant, I want to walk in it and feel that the plants own me. I'm getting there. I still work on the basic stuff but my garden is growing nicely.
Mark I loved the picture of the perennial bed, I wish every one could show his or her garden.
Hortisexual, I admired very much your work!
Here two links to see my garden.
">http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=67979&a=7504063">
">http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=67979&a=1313755">

Hi Pauline,
You have a beautiful garden!!!
Tim

Hi, I am a grower of Rare and Exotic Zone pushing plants located in SW Ohio Zone 6. I grow outside 20 Different Types of Hardy Eucalyptus as Perennial Regrowth Shrubs! Also I have a Hardy Banana Musa Basjoo in the ground for 4 years and a Hardy Tree Dahlia that grows to 20Ft in one season.
Chooch is a true extreme Hardcore Collecter!! If you would like to look at my site: http://home.infospace.com/eman15
I ship plants thru the USA and seeds to Canada. I have lots of other Exotics in too small amounts to be listed in the catalog.