Okay, who here is an impulse buyer?

I know I can't be the only one. Who else here can't resist buying plants, seeds, and such?
I buy SO many plants and than spend way to much time trying to figure out where to plant them once they get home.
One whole corner of my deck is currently full of 1 gal pots of Erysimum ' Purple Wall Flower' (12)....don;t know where to put them, but couldn't pass up $1.99 sale on them. :-)

Marc

I'm not an impulse buyer, really!

Those durn plants just tumble into my shopping cart - I don't know how they got there! But once they're in the cart, I can't put 'em back.....awwwww, look at 'em - they need a good home!

(snicker) denial is my middle name when it comes to plant compulsions

No impulse about it! All plants are beautiful and deserving of a good home (especially ones on sale or in the "realy needs some love" bin.) I have a home, hence...... That's logic!

LOL I see the wisdom of your 'logic'....I must rethink my position.
"I'm no addict, I'm a Good Samaritan, a healer, a compassionate soul that's all."

There is nothing impulsive about it!

It is compulsive.

I too have about a half dozen plants waiting for a place in the ground. I knew when I bought them I had no place for them (but I will find one!).

It's an illness of the best kind. :-)

I'm appalled at the lack of self-control demonstrated by some people on this site. You all need serious psychiatric help.
I love to garden and when I go to the nursery I make sure to have a list of what I need beforehand and how many of each. I thoroughly research my intended purchases before I even step out of the door.

So, what I want to know is, which one of you bad influences follow me and manage to stuff all of those extra plants, trees, and shrubs in to my car? Also, who has been using my name and address to order all of those plants online? Hmmmm? So now I suppose I have to plant them all and take care of them for the rest of their natural lives!

And, of course, since I certainly didn't plan on purchasing those extra plants, now I have to go out and get more topsoil, pots, and trellises to accomodate them.
Shame on you all!!!!!!!!!! PS someone's been sneaking into my house at night and starting more seeds too!

I used to get away with the excuse that I didn't put that stuff in my cart, must have been one of the kids. You all know how difficult it is to shop with small children. I don't think DH ever really believed that line, but he pretended until the kids were teenagers! But now I have a granddaughter, that is going to learn to shop with me! And it's perfect, cause she is too young to talk yet, and can't deny anything I blame on her!

Oh this is great! I'm feeling SO much better about myself now :-)

Marc

Oh!so that explains it-it's not me ordering & buying, it's a phantom. That's why I have seeds and plants that I have no clue where to put--I look at some things & have no earthly recollection of where I thought that would go, clearly I could not have picked out more SUN loving plants, because I don't have more than 3 square feet of full sun! (Except for smack in the middle of the front yard, which if I dig it all up, I wouldn't have to mow...hmmm..perhaps the phantom who loaded the cart has an ulterior motive...). Does anyone else get things (plants or seeds)early, with the perfect spot in mind, yet when its time to plant, can not figure out where it was supposed to go?

These tennessee plants must be a different breed or something, they jump like spiders! I had one jump on my back the other day and hitch a ride home -- mmm hmm sure did.

roseofkaren - you know, if you make a careful map of where you want to put all the new stuff BEFORE you buy it - its a lot easier - then you only end up with 20 or 30 plants that you have no idea what to do with :-)

KIDS - ah, yes, forgot about those - I guess that explains the trays of SweetPeas, Dill, and White Marigolds currently in my dining room/seedling nursery! Curse my desire to instill my passion in my offspring!!!!!

Tammy, do you have any of those Tennessee jumping spider plants for SASE or Postage??? I just KNOW I have to have one of those too :-)

Impulse buyer??? hmmmmm I prefer to think of myself as spontaneous!

As I said in another forum. Some women go out and buy a new outfit to cheer themselves up....I buy plants. I've apparantly been extremely down lately. lol

I like spontaneous, too.

These are my stories and I'm sticking to them. I was exhausted after that long drive and I wasn't thinking clearly. I was hungry and couldnt think clearly. If I hadn't gone into the ACE hardware store to get a longer shower arm (My husband could have stopped on the way home and bought it)... If I had taken a different aisle... If I didn't love wind chimes... If my imagination had just been asleep...

Rationalization works every time. How's this for rationalizing? I bought 2 grapevines just recently. I don't have an arbor for them and they do need some support. The wind chimes would look great hanging from the middle of an arbor. This is where the rationalizing comes in. My husband decided to sell MY little bull calf. I am the registered owner. My husband would only use the money we made on things for his tractor. The money is really mine. Sooooo, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and said the three most expensive words in the English language: I'll take it!!!

Once I got home, reality hit. Those wind chimes must weigh at least 50 pounds. I'm going to need a heavy duty arbor to handle that weight. Ahhh, but those grapevines will have a great place to grow over.

LOL!!!!!!!! I am ROTFLOL!!!!!!!!! Not me! I am not an impluse buyer......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz---ouch- stinkin lightning....

I have exactly the plants I need and I know (darn it's hard to type around this nose...) where I am planting each and every one of them. Just not all in MY yard! My freinds are being shown the way...hehehe

Heather

Spontaneous - that's it, yes! I spontaneously nabbed a bag of beautiful dutch iris corms at Wal-Mart a couple days ago...

My husband has instructed our children (4 and 8) to remind me that I don't need any more plants.

So at the store I hug my kids and thank them for reminding me and I cheerfully explain that they are right - it isn't that I need them. I simply want them. :)

All is well.

I have been extremely disciplined. I do not waste money. I do not over spend and I rarely buy plants since I can trade for them or grow them from seed. You cannot imagine how shocked I was today when I was at Home Depot for a screen door and walked to the register. The girl rang up my order and in my bag I found a bleeding heart, white bleeding heart, Japanese fern and white clematis. I have absolutely no idea how that happened!

I'm an addict, and I admit it.

I SEEK them out, research them, and then buy them off the internet either via plant stores or ebay. I can buy the annuals locally, and that requires a trip to town in the pickup that has a topper on it. Actually, probably two trips. I'm so sick!

DH realizes it too, but doesn't say much. He just goes golfing when the mail starts arriving by the truckload, and I hide the keys to the pickup that has the topper.

He can get his golf clubs in his car, right?

Some of you can blame your children - I'm not quite so lucky and my DH always has a funny expression on his face when I tell him my Pomeranian put that plant (those plants?) into the car. Dotti

Plants seem to jump out at me screaming "take me home" no matter where I am or go. If it isn't a sad, lonely soldier at the supermarket which I bring home so it won't end up in the garbage bin, it's the "incredible buy" I happen across when going to HD or Lowe's for potting soil and pots (nothing else, I swear!) Who can resist a 3 gallon tibouchina for $6, when I could have easily spent that much online for a 2 1/2" baby? Today I *had* to have the plumeria rubra at HD because I need a "starter" plumeria to practice on before I get the really exotic stuff. Only $16.99. Such the bargain! How could I *not* buy? Think of the money I'm saving!

I'm also the "plant lady" all my friends bring their neglected rejects to when they're on their last legs....I've nursed more than one plant back to health and returned it...only to get it back again permanently a few months later when they're about dead again. No problem for Ms. Green Thumb. I end up with stuff I don't even like because it's preferable to keep it alive than give it away to the same person who's tried to kill it before. I always find this stuff the proper home elsewhere, eventually...I'm not a humanitarian so much as a "plantarian".

I see something unusual, I have to take cuttings! I've even snuck them into international airspace in my bra rather than to risk having them taken away by airport security... I always rationalize that they probably won't survive anyway so what's the harm? Then you end up with 6 more pots of stuff you don't know what to do with....

Being in south Florida, I can usually sink just about anything into the ground and have it take off...Much of my overflow has ended up in the ground even after telling myself that all new post-hurricane plants would be in containers for portability and ease of transport should the 'canes come again this year...At this point I need about 5 friends with generous room and a week in order to haul it all out of here...They're all getting so huge, and I'm just getting more all the time because the more time I spend here at Dave's, the more I realize I *have* to have....

I go off on tangents....the "black and blue" phase resulted in black ginger, blue ginger, panda ginger, black potatoe vine and elephant ears, dark purple oxalis, blue dawn flower, other purple stuff from local nurseries....All of this for *one* planter and nook, mind you, though they all require differing light and moisture levels!

I'm lucky I've managed to limit myself to only 2 brugmansia's, 2 tibouchina's, 2 leonitis, one michelia champaca. All growing huger every day...But the wee succulents and cacti are another matter entirely. They're so small that they really don't count, especially if you can fit 5 of them into one planter....They only count as *one* plant that way. But they get big, too, don't they??...

I could go on and on, but I won't. If questioned I always tell the offender that it's a very healthy and life affirming hobby. How can they disagree with something as logical and rational as *that*? ;-D

Ha! I'm with Candy - it's a compulsion/adiction that I don't want to cure. I did used to buy lots of nursery plants that didn't always get planted up in time...after I found DG, I grow so much from seeds and that has been a lot easier on the back. Even when I was unemployed for a while and could not afford to buy plants, I got my plant fix by propogating and that was when I found DG, too. I still think the timing of stumbling on this site was just meant to be!

Soon, Marc, I may be to the point where if I want a new plant, something has to go...either that or tear out the front lawn...hmmmm, now there's an idea...
~Angela

I have already crossed that point Angela......our lawn is dwindling down slowly but surely.
Took out some more of it yesterday to make the new dahlia bed ( I love co-ops).

obsessive-compulsive? Nah! not a chance.Primary reason for buying more plants and seed is to 'fill out the set'. ie: with 23 genera and 250 species of poppies how long will it take to have them all growing in the yard? Obsessive? compulsive? rational? spontaneous? addicted? no,just a bit looney.

Oh I like looney...sounds so much less threatening than 'Crazy'. LOL

Marc

I found snapdragons on sale, bought some, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. That's not the strange part.....I'm actually thinking about going back for some more. lol Loony? Me? You bet.

I am kind of crazy for plants. I got 40 perennials coming and about 30 more daylilies. I got no idea where I am going to put them. Plus I got 2 trades today and more trades going out on Monday.

It's Friday... the folks at RIllito Nursery will be expecting my kids and me. I can't let them down, can I?

LOL Jen!

The gal at one of my favorite local nurseries saw me come in the front door the other day and said, "We missed you yesterday!"

I had been there 4 days running earlier in the week, because I was already driving by there, because they might have something new, because I might have missed seeing something the day before, because because because that's the wonderful way it is!

Oh, you all are so funny. I was so active on this site last year, looking forward to the spring and I fell and broke my ankle 3 weeks ago...now I can't dig!!! My 12 year old is also a plant addict and we snuck out to Home Depot today and created a new planter. (cast, crutches and all) She set up a chair so I could clean out the rose bed, too. It's slowing me down, but I guess it can't stop me completley! Just hope the DH doesn't spot the planter.....he'll expect me to more around the house!

OMW!! I went to the produce junction today to get broccoli and carrots strawberries ect- to EAT- and........

2 flowering cactus $4 each! (christmas type, purple one and red one)
3 gerber daisys $2 each!
3 mini roses $3 each!

LEAPED into my arms and would not leave - despite my halfhearted pleas....LOL!!!!!!!!!!

Heather

its not buying plants that is a problem with me. i buy gadgets. i have two garden carts. one is that big green monster with four wheels that when its full i can't pull it at all. the other is a little cart that doesn't hold much of anything. now, i just bought from northern tools a five cubic ft. garden cart but this one has bicycle tires and i know its gonna be perfect.

How nice -- I thought I was the only one who needed a 12-step plan for my addiction....compulsion.....insanity.....whatever it is!

I HAD to buy the melianthus. I mean, it was half the price that the fancy nursery charges. Well, maybe a little more than half. But not much more, honest. And it was such a buy! They're relatively rare here, not often seen. A nice big healthy plant, too. Of course now I have to keep it alive in its container, while I arrange to get my gardener to come out and dig out a large shrub he transplanted for me that really hasn't done very well since (obviously the shrub's at fault), amend the soil, and lay down that new garden path I need, along with a couple of truckfulls of mulch. But before he does that, WE have to clean up a spot piled with bricks and stones.

And only then can I put the melianthus in the ground, along with the other dozen plants in containers that are also waiting for this one last major project to get done!

And after that.....well, I guess I'll be stuffing plants into fancy pots because I've run out of garden space. No wait, the Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve' is looking sickly, maybe I should have the gardener rip that one out too, and I could go buy a nice handsome Agyranthemum 'Ruby Slippers' to put there instead. Oh, and there's that 8" spot of dirt where the helichrysum died over the winter, I simply must find something to put there because bare dirt is, well, bare dirt -- a gardening sin of some sort, I'm sure.

And just because I come home from the nurseries and garden centers with not two, but six plants, doesn't mean I'm one sick puppy, at all. I'm just stockpiling, because I'm sure at least two of my plants currently in the ground will die in the next few months, or wilt, or get attacked by bugs, and there'll be this BARE DIRT showing again, which I absolutely must cover up with a new plant!

There you have it. I'm not sick, or insane. I'm merely -- prudent, that's it. My garden needs reserve stock, just like you need savings in the bank. I'm protecting it against plant thieves, locust attacks, and hurricanes. What do you mean, there's no locusts in CA? What if there's a first time? Better to be prepared!

i glad im not the only one with this problem we've only had our house a couple of years the first year we remodel the inside my wife has a problem she's a design on a dime addict re done the den three times anyway we started on the front yard bought 20 boxwoods 15 dwarf burning bushes in first week of march 1700.00 dollars later and we have'nt even started the pond in the back yard yet its been a blast but i thank the back will have to wait till next year

All right, people! GET A GRIP!!!! I personally have not purchased a single plant or packet of seed to put in my garden, nor have I started any seedlings. The secret is self-control, avoiding areas of temptation, looking at catalogs as simply reference material and NOT avenues of commerce. I find that I am very able to maintain this posture in the early spring, while you are all obviously running rampant through the greenhouses and weighing your poor FedEx and UPS people down with heavy loads, by simple meditation and deep breathing.

Besides, the nurseries around here aren't open yet and it doesn't make any sense for me to plant any starts until NEXT week because they will just get too big and sprawlly and I THINK that someone (names will not be mentioned) has hidden all of the catalogs after asking if they were ALL SEED CATALOGS?????? To which I replied, of course not, some of them are NURSERY catalogs.

Laughing til tears in my eyes. Will re-read again.
I like to think of myself as a rescuer (plants at the dump, store whatever) and an educator-if I didn't have lots of plants, I couldn't drag family, friends, neighbors, walkers on the road ( no kidding) and the postal ladies (even the ones behind the counter who know me
So well--to teach them about plants and even share some.
We are all very healthy and the experiences of you wonderful folk who have already posted, show how utterly normal the plant/garden contact and introduction into own home/yard is.

I just moved from California to Minnesota a couple years ago. My excuse is perfect - I am still trying to figure out what will grow here!

I resisted the impulse today!!!! I only bought 4 plants! the Sweet potato margurite vine and Blackie, a wandering jew that is slightly different than the 2 I alreay had (it WAS diffrent!) and a cape primrose Jason. SOOO pretty (and the only one- therefore a must have)

LOL!!

Heather