PLANTAHOLICS, WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE EVERYTHING?

I think I'm addicted to trading, but the problem is, I have just about everything I want already. I collect elephant ears, cannas, daylilies, hostas, irises, sedums, succulents and more. But I almost have it all. It is getting so difficult to find someone with something I want. So I often just end up buying what I want.

I do enjoy trading, but honestly I have no room left to plant anything else! I've already filled up my ground--no lawn at all--beautiful plants everywhere you look. And I've started on my brother's place next door simply to have more gardening space! Terry, my brother, gets this look of panic on his face when he comes home to find a new flowerbed in his yard. He asked once, "The property lines keep moving, so just where is my property now?" After a little thought, I replied with, "Well, anywhere you see lawn, that's your property." LOL

I don't guess I REALLY have it all. With 50,000 registered daylilies out there, I have a ways to go before I get all those. But that kinda limits my trading.

What about you guys? Do you have it all yet? What do you do after you get it all? Do you find a new addiction? What happens when you run out of space to grow things? Do you keep collecting anyway? Do you push other plants out to make room for new favorites? Will you ever have "enough"?

NancyAnn

You begin to garden vertically. There's still plenty of space to place pots on shelves or on the house walls and inside. You can have a teeny garden and tons of plants!

Here we have the option for an allotment, local government ground for the growing of vegetables mainly but now many allow some ornamentals on the plots. Or offer to do the gardens of friends and families (or they end up asking you to do them).

I agree there does come a time if you seriously collect something when most traders don't have anything you're looking for so you join a society for the plants you like which has plants and seed exchanges. :)

This message was edited Aug 24, 2005 3:15 PM

Nancy Ann,

Please post some pics of your gardens. We have an area we are trying to design with no lawn and I only want to plant it once - at least for now.

I've only been really serious about perennials the last couple of years, but before I'd go crazy over coleus for a few years, then something else, etc. With the perennials, I figure if I ever get it all done and then want something else, I'll dig out the old and familiar and plant in my daughter's or son's yard to make room, and it will still be in the family. The only things I couldn't give up are special pass along plants (we still have a few that originally came from my grandmother's yard in Ky - one of which my dad says is just a briar) and my memory plants, which are just named ones in honor of friends or family, like digitalis "Pam's Choice" for my sister. By the way, do you know of any plant with the name of "Adrienne". Looking for one for my daughter. She wasn't amused when I said I'd just plant pumpkins for her - she was born on Halloween.

I still have a long, long way to go before I'm in your shoes, but in the meantime, it sure is fun.

I make excuses for myself by selling plants in the summer. I tell myself that all the plants I trade for or start from seed are not staying here, but by fall, there are thousands of plants in pots to be stored for the winter under mulch and plastic. I have raised beds all over the yard for my 'keeper' plants, but I'm fast running out of space. My DH, after putting in 6 raised beds, 4'x12' and two greenhouses, has asked if I plan to start so many plants next year... it was less a question than a plea.

Stownes

Here's a short list of plants with Adrienne in the name if it helps although one or two may not be available or under another name in the US.

Dahlia 'Adrienne Simms'
Erica carnea 'Adrienne Duncan'
Fuchsia 'Adrienne'
Iris 'Adrienne Taylor'
Leptospermum scoparium 'Adrienne'
Primula auricula 'Adrienne Ruan'
Rosa 'Adrienne Berman'
Rubis fruticosus 'Adrienne'

BAA - Thanks so much. I have been looking for something for her and you just can't know how much I appreciate the info. This is so cool!!

"WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE EVERYTHING?"

I actually laughed out loud when I read this written by Baa, "You begin to garden vertically. There's still plenty of space to place pots on shelves or on the house walls and inside". I swear I was sitting here with a brand new catalogue showcasing fruiting plants that could be grown in containers on patios that were trained to be very columnar and I was thinking oh my... I've certainly spread out but I haven't quite maxed out spreading upward yet. I did just recently place wall pockets for plants in a bathroom though and that's a start in the right direction... onward and upward!

Back to what to do when you have everything- You get a new addiction. How about carnivorous plants ;)

I too purchase pretty much 95% of my plant material because most people aren't into NA native, carnivorous, or insectivorous plants.

I don't trade much as all I've basically got here is native plant seed. Maybe I should go and try a post in the seed trading forum and expand a little bit out of plants that are native. Hmmm, a moon garden maybe.

Seriously, you sound like the kind of gal who needs to find a new species addiction. Either that or begin gardening vertically.

I hate to say it, but eventually, you get tired. I have done almost no trading this year, bought less than half of what I did last year, just too darned tuckered out to do it! Oh, I still have big plans, but I've become a proponent of less is more, and sometimes having two exquisite plants really is better than twenty.

Ok, ok, I can hear the laughing! Really, though, don't you sometimes just look around and think, maybe it's time to get very specific about what you really "need?"

And then there's how many areas of plantlife that you spread out into, I was "collecting" dianthus and primulas and violas and old garden roses, and herbs, wildflowers, hardy geraniums,
o dear, see what I mean!!!!!

Or if you haven't become tired and you've run out of space, maybe you can find someone like stownes (above) and take over their garden. lol

Ann

Sometimes I give friends plants just so I can get pictures and seeds from them. I've pretty much run out of garden space here.

Say Weeze in the great state of Alaska... you don't by any chance have any seed to Pinguicula villosa, Pinguicula vulgaris, Drosera intermedia or anything else the grows naturally up in your neck in the woods that is carnivorous that I could try germinating do you? I realize it's a shot in the dark but your property is huge and I was sort of hoping you might be growing these yourself somewhere up there.

Hi, Equil. I'll have to look those up. I sure haven't collected seeds for them, I can tell you. Checking my wild plant book, I see that our local sundew is Drosera rotundifolia or angelica. It's a bog plant. I am not very familiar with it, so I don't know its bloom time. I've checked Tom Clothier's Germination Data, and it looks like rather hard seed to germinate: Drosera rotundifolia , Sow at Max. 5ºC (41ºF), germination irregular, often several months. As for the bog violet, Pinguicula vulgaris, I don't know if it even grows here. Sorry I wasn't of more help.

Yup, you've got Drosera rotundifolia as well as Drosera anglica up there. Both bloom in spring but the seeds remain on the plant for a while before as sort of a safety mechanism to perpetuate the species. Their dispersal mechanism is not so dissimilar from other species. I've got a few that still have seed stalks on them right now. D. anglica can be tricky to germinate because I've done it before but rotundifolia is actually pretty easy. I can send you some photos of rotundifolia that are 4 month old seedlings right now. Cutest little things. Since you are one of those people who has run out of space... any chance I can get you into carnivorous plants- tee he!

Drosera rotundifolia, D. anglica and D. intermedia all occur in the British Isles too, anglica is more common in the North and intermedia tends to be more common to the west of us but D. rotundifolia is local to us in the New Forest although it's spread covers almost the whole of Britain. I keep an eye out for them every year, this year they haven't been so prevalent, possibly because the spring was dry here but other times you can barely avoid them. They would have slightly different genes to the N. American plants as you know but it's interesting to hear they spread so far wide.

Kathleen, I've sometimes thought about giving all my seeds and plants in pots away and just tending the plants we have in the garden but I'm usually quickly cured of it LOL.

Piccie is of D. rotundifolia in it's New Forest habitat, it's so wild you can almost hear it roar ;)

Well, even tho I have it all, I can't resist sales. Y'all will have to check out my Lowe's deals thread. I just loaded my van up today TWICE with lowe's deals I couldn't pass up.

I am gardening vertically and even on my porch, as well as having expanded into my brother's yard. For the last couple of years, I've been checking out "rooftop gardening" as a possibility. LOL

I have one terrace garden that I'm doing like a New Orleans style terrace with lots of brass and gold planters hanging on the wall. I even have a lionshead water fountain for the wall and will have lattice trellises as well as overhead beams for a vine and hanging pots.

It's madness! Sometimes it's a jungle here when I grow something new, not realizing how large it gets. But I'm having fun filling every inch of my gardens with plants. My brother enjoys it so much that he spends more time on my porch than he does on his deck.

But now look out folks! When I run outta room, you may find me encroaching on your grounds! LOL

NancyAnn

lol, Baa, you notice that I ONLY spent about HALF what I did last year, and I have to tell you, last year was a good year for my favorite nursery! We've been in drought conditions most of the summer and I think that that has kept me from overstressing the garden. I mean, it's not all about the plants, the soil has to take up some of our time and the water levels on a farm are precious and need to be used wisely by all.

NancyAnn, we are on 132 acres, and I have about an acre and a half to play on. There was a lot of stuff here to begin with, the place is over 150 years old as a farm yard (the house is a 'new' one, it's 50 years old this year), and I have been adding steadily since we moved in. Grass is definitely over rated as a lawn ornament!

Now I'll be looking for sundew seed pods, along with all the others I keep an eye on!

Say Baa... did you ever wonder how it was that D. anglica ended up occurring naturally in the British Isles? That sort of blows my mind. I can see rotundifolia (and by the way, yours is really nice and red, ours isn't nearly that red) and I can see intermedia but... anglica???

Hey Weeze, merci beaucoup!

Well indeed anglica is a most unusual name to be using in conjunction with native British species! Perhaps it blew in with other settlers early in our recent history ;)

Kathleen I've never known a livestock farmer who enjoys mowing the grass for pleasure *G*

lol, Stan does in 3rd gear on a 1987(?) Ford lawn 'tractor,' almost makes you dizzy to watch it! I just keep ripping it out and planting crreping thyme.

Nancy Ann, I have'nt seen you post much about lilies. Maybe it's time for you to get hot and heavy into those! I'm on the road to becoming a lily fiend, well to be honest, I guess I'm just a general plant fiend!

I am actually a daylily addict. That's about all I trade for anymore. I have about 250 varieties now, and on Sat., I'm visiting a friend in TN who hybridizes daylilies. I'm buying 100 varieties from him! And Tues, I got in 80 seedlings from another hybridizing friend who bred these and she's having me grow them because she's out of space and time.

I just hauled home a truckload of succulents, cacti, various ee's and perennials from some friends' houses yesterday about 4 hrs away. (See, I'm an addict!) I got stuff I'd never even heard of before! So I guess I really don't have it all. I came home with an entire vanload of plants! And also a hypertufa ee leaf and a wicker chair!

I think I really should stop, but that's no fun! LOL

N.

We can stop... anytime we want. We just have to want to stop and I'm not in the mood for stopping right now. No point to the exercise and it's much more lush looking around my house these days since I got addicted to native plants in general and the host of other species that caught my eye.

Say Baa, "Perhaps it blew in with other settlers early in our recent history ;)"... I don't think so. I think it was there long before they came. Tens of thousands of years before the Druids even. What perplexes me is that one of the parents would have been D. linearis. Now figure that one out. That's what blows my mind. D. anglica is a naturally occurring hybrid. In the British Isles, as well as in Hawaii where it is also indigenous, there is no rhyme or reason as to why it should be there happy as a clam. Now there is a sterile cross out there that one can create on their own by pollinating but that's not the D. anglica you've got over in your neck of the woods. One of these days I'll ask some folk who might know the answer about how that species ended up in the British Isles as well as in Hawaii. I'm most curious.

Kathleen, sound like great fun!

Equilibrium, are we talking D. anglica or D. x anglica, since D. linearis isn't a native species that the D. anglica that occurs here should be the species rather than the hybrid. Or do you have any further info?

LOL ButterflyChaser, now if you start planting wicker chairs you may run out if room much faster ;)

That's what I meant. D. linearis doesn't and hasn't ever occurred in the British Isles yet you have the naturally occurring hybrid of anglica that isn't sterile. D. x anglica from seed is an infertile hybrid, at least that was my understanding I have no idea how the D. anglica ended up over by you but it is most certainly there and has been for a very long time. I'll poke around and see what I can find out. I've never looked into this before. Continental Drift?

Hi Baa, Looks as if somebody else had the same questions as me. I just pulled this up from the Internet on my first try-

"Drosera anglica is indeed a species, but as with many other true species, it's origin was a result of hybridization. In this case D. linearis and D. rotundifolia were the parents where they naturally occurr within the same area. These species are said to be sympatric.

Hybrids are known amongst the temperate species, but such hybrids are typically sterile. This is because their randomly distributed chromosomes do not line up properly, and the result is defective sperm and eggs. However, in certain very rare instances, all the genetic material gets included in one daughter cell by accident during the process of meiosis (cell division): one cell has no material, the other has a full set of chromosomes, and is then fertile. Chromosomes can also line up properly through sheer "luck of the draw" and the result is the same. Such cells have double the original chromosome count, and when these cells divide, each cell has a full set of chromosomes, and in turn are fertile. This happened in the far distant past with our fertile D. anglica. Chromosome counts show 2N=20 for the respective parents, but in D. anglica they are double that: 2N=40. There are also sterile hybrids to be found in these habitats which were not so "lucky". This proscess is assumed to have happened in many parts of the range of D. anglica at many different points in time, and the process continues today where the species are sympatric.

The plant Ivan produced produced by crossing D. linearis with D. rotundifolia would normally have produced sterile seed, because the plant would not have a full set of chromosomes. When he treated the plant with colchicine, the chemical prevented the formation of the spindle fibers that draw the chromosomes apart during one phase of meiosis, so one cell got none, and the other got a full set of chromosomes. This is known as amphiploidy, and is one of the most important mechanisms by which new species are formed. Sterile D. anglica is known as D. x anglica, and it's chromosome count is 2N=20.

I call it prehistoric, because the form of this plant is similar to the very first fertile D. anglica plants! Evolutionary pressures have not streamlined its form as they have with modern day D. anglica which is both taller and has narrower lamina. Evolution works by natural selection: survival of the fittest. Those traits which lead to species survival get passed on to later generations. In this case, I speculate that the wider lamina of these plants created competition amongst themselves for prey and sunlight. The broad leaves would be more likely to overlap, restricting prey capture. Taller plants with more narrow lamina were able to lift above the crowd. They captured more prey, and had more access to sunlight. They were therefore, better able to thrive, reproduce, and pass these characteristics on to their offspring. After countless generations, they became more numerous, and the less successful broader leaved forms were out competed: their form was lost as a result, and this is why our present day D. anglica is much different looking than this plant. The final stage in speciation is reached when the new hybrids can no longer cross back with their progenitors, but it is likely that amphiploidy is responsible for the creation of many of the forms we regard as "true" species."

And this written by the same person-
"I guess that we will never know how extensive the sympatric D. linearis or D. rotundifolia really were, since Fernando wasn't around back then. Probably the range was much greater "back then" though and what we see now are relic populations. It's more likely that the plant arose in different parts of the world through isolated examples of amphiploidy in different geographical locations, then to assume it radiated through migratory or aqueous transportation.

As to being the most rare Drosera in the world, you got me! You're correct that any new hybrid would also have to be considered the most rare plant in the world, but only if the grower had just one remaining plant ;-) and this means that neither may be called by that adjective. So, henceforth, I will ammend my writing to refer to it as "POSSIBLY the most rare Drosera on Earth". Fair enough?

Another loophole is that allopolyploidy in the sympatric range of D. rotundifolia and D. linearis is actually an ongoing process (Schnell, 1989). There is therefore the possibility that the "prehistoric" event may have repeated itself just yesterday somewhere in the range, or just recently in the past. If this were so, then one would expect to find intermediate forms within the population range that demonstrated this primitive form. This is indeed the case: Schnell reported finding these broad leaved forms in his field studies.

Nope. You're not bothering me. What good is having answers if no one asks any questions?"

Then came this from somebody else-
"I wonder if back when sundews were first created if there was just 1 primitave sundew species and through natural selection became all the species and forms you find today,including the vft."

The response from the other person was this-
"There is an entire branch of plant science that also asks the same questions! In essence, this is what taxonomy and the related study of phyllogeny is about. It's a difficult question due to the length of time we are talking about: speciation is a process spanning millions of years. Fossil evidence is poor, and doesn't help much in answering this question, although recent advances in genetics makes it possible to gain some insight by comparing specific presence or absence of gene markers. Some questions will probably remain unanswered, such as did these species originate in one place in the world, or in multiple places at different times as a result of similar evolutionary mechanisms within specific plant families? If Drosera have a common ancestor, it is likely that such originated in Africa or Australia, and probably back when those continents were united. I believe that D. regia is the most "primitive" form within the genus although there are other primitive types as well in other continents: e.g. Drosera meristocaulis in Brasil. Other species like D. anglica and D. nidiformis are relative "newbies"."

Then a third person comes in and offers this-
"...However, you are very correct that speciation can occur quickly. In plants more so than in animals. This is because as soon as a plant's chromosome number increases evenly by poliploidation (is that a word?) or by single chromosomes doubling up, it is instantly a new species. You can start with a hybrid, or you can have a single species just double up. However, the new species may not be very different from the parent plant/plants. Usually polyploidy are bigger, and that’s about it. However, the sudden level of redundant data means mutations that would normally be lethal are compensated for thus leaving the DNA open for more change. DNA mutation occurs at a steady rate, but the number of non-lethal mutations will greatly increase meaning natural selection has more material to work with. Eventually, you can get the extra genes so distorted they won't recognize the original cross’s chromosomes. This means you have a population that has completely separated from the parent plants and no new accidents are going to make a new member of this species because they can't interbreed. Does that make sence?

Now here is how you get slower speciation. Same thing is happening, but remember these plants are all still very similar looking. It take several "technically" new species to show up before you can compare the end product back to the original and say, those are different plants at a glance. The more diverse the range of appearances, the further away from each other the groups have gone. Eventually transitional species die out and what you have left are a bunch of different but related species. AKA, what I believe Tamlin was referring to was the processes of creating dramatically different species adapted to a range of habitats with highly unique genes in addition to common roots way way way back.

Evolution can be fast, but the evolution of one part of a population while another stays the same or takes a different root is very slow.
Long term species diversity
1. isolate
2. mutate
3. disturbances/competition

Evolution of a species (This is your Domestic Dog, their genetic sequence is relatively unaltered, it is only the alleles that have changed. K9’s happen to have an incredibly adaptive set of DNA which is why so many phenotypes have arisen both in domestic and wild types. AKA they don’t NEED to become a new species to adapt to new environments… same for small cats. Gene Example: 1 gene determines snout shape and length in dogs. It’s an on-off switch that is timer based. The sooner it is turned off, the shorter and blockier the snout, the longer is it left on the longer and skinner and pointier the snout. 1 gene, big difference! This is also our variants of plants, a white vs. pink flower, fat vs. thin leaves etc.)
1. mutate
2. disturbances/competition"

And then the original person comes back in and offers this-
"A very nice breakdown on the mechanics of speciation Darcie.
FYI "poliploidation" would be an incorrect term best covered by the use of "polyploidy" I think. Man, it's been quite a refresher course on genetics lately for me, lol.

Yes, genetic drift is a consequence of isolation. This is a very important consideration in speciation, but it is not until competition and natural selection operates on the new isolated populations that a final form becomes stable. Once the filial generations cannot recross back with the parent generation, species seggregation becomes much more definitive.

Despite the popularity of the X-men movies, mutation does not immediately grant species consideration, although it is an integral part of the process. A lot happens in 80 million years or so!"

All of this and my poor brain cells are now on circuitry overload. I think I need to digest what I found because I still don't fully grasp how it is that D. anglica ended up in the British Isles or in Hawaii. It's looking as if these people are favoring Continental Drift though. I'd still be open to some sort of aqueous transportation. For what it is worth, I recognized the writing style of one of those people and I will contact him direct in the next few weeks.

What do you do when you have everything? Why, you dig it up and divide it in parts and mail them to the people who lost all their plants to Katrina! (When the time comes, of course. It's too soon for plants now but I bet we can contribute something to every last garden that gets rebuilt.)