An unhealthy relationship....with plants.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I like plants. I like to have my little garden looking like a jungle of weird and wonderful plants, mostly in pots because I live in rented premises and I don’t want to have to ever leave them behind if I move.

But it looks like I might be moving again in the near future, and it will seriously take a few trailer-loads to transport my ‘babies’ to their new abode. So I’ve just been stock-taking, wondering which can either be left behind or perhaps given away…

I can’t leave the yuccas…I know they’re a dime a dozen but I rescued the original plant from a shared house my daughter lived in years ago. The poor yucca had a single leaf, lying on the ground having fallen out of it’s pot. It took a couple of years of tlc, but the ‘mother’ plant is now about 12 feet tall, and I have four pots of her offspring.

The stag ferns are rescues from approximately 12 years ago too. Somebody had dumped a motley clump of ferns down a back lane…although I couldn’t save all of them, the ones I have are magnificent specimens.

The monstera deliciosa has moved with me to many houses. At one point I took a small cutting (they’re easily propagated) which was lucky because two days later a frost killed the main plant. :frowning:

I have a small umbrella plant now that originally lived in a pot in our backyard when I was a kid. Thirty-five years ago, mum moved to a country property and planted it in her garden where it grew to massive proportions. They sold the farm about 3 yrs ago, so I took a cutting which I planted in my (then) garden. A recent visit to that garden saw the plant overgrown with weeds and looking very sad, so I dug it up and bunged it in another pot and brought it back to Melbourne. I didn’t think it would survive actually, but my mum died two months ago, and two days later the plant threw out two new leaves, followed quickly by another six! Definitely can’t leave that one behind.

And there’s miscellaneous cuttings stolen from gardens of friends (and strangers) and there’s ferns purloined from rainforest gullies, there’s plants I’m rehabbing for friends who have a tendency to kill 'em and there’s so many fucking plants and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has a ‘history’.

I’ve learned how to give books away (that took a lot of strength and perseverance) and I don’t hoard other shit any more (life is a lot less stressful without useless junk cluttering up my life) but don’t ask me to give my plants away. Looks like I’m gonna be hiring a very big bloody trailer when I move.

:cool:

2

A doctor’s relationship with all the patients he’s saved is hardly unhealthy. Yours isn’t necessarily any different, especially considering their continued health is probably dependent on your continued presence. If you get so much pleasure from them then its entirely symbiotic. Get the trailer, it’s to the benefit of all involved.

Wish you’d post some pictures. I completely get where you’re coming from.

3

Take as many as you can and try to get the rest to good homes. The new people might trash them.

Maybe you can just cart them all a few at a time to the new place and get some fellow plantlovers to help in exchange for plants.
Hmmm, maybe my own attachment to plants is too much?
I’ve relocated trees to save them being razed, rescued plants from businesses that planned to crush them, and transported potted plants that weren’t even mine across the country. Maybe I do have a plant problem!
Good luck with relocating yours.

4

Any thought that a nursery might represent a better calling than the munger van?

5

My partner has the same relationship with plants, and he gives all the same reasons!

This came up again because it’s time here to take back inside the house way more than a handful of plants, before the first frost, and some of the plants have gotten really big and we’re raking our brains to think about where they’ll fit. As I said to him yesterday, we don’t live in a glass house! There aren’t that many windows around.

I had put my foot down (no plants in my room!), but caved in and made place to welcome a 5’ fuchsia arborescens… because I, actually, couldn’t bear the thought of letting it outside to take its chance with the frost while taking inside only the same size as motherplant (but way narrower) cutting. That wouldn’t have been just! :mad:

He did managed to gift a few plants and cuttings to a few trusted friends.

6

BleizDu , your partner doesn’t have a plant blog, does he? :wink:

But, yeah- I’m in the same boat over here, except with a few tropical trees. Moved recently, and it was a complete pain in the bum. Definitely try to get rid of the duplicates/offsprings through craigslist or otherwise. And, yes, it will hurt.

7

Night time temps are falling here. Last weekend we moved the big plants inside; bananas, ficus, kaffir lime, bay, etc. I feel for you, OP.

8

Whaddaya mean, “unhealthy”??!?

I’ve been in the same position as kambuckta numerous times, driving a rental truck which (among other things) transported many garden and indoor plants to their new homes. These included a seven-foot Madagascar palm in a heavy clay tub, which nearly killed me and a helper (Mrs. J.) - these “palms” are heavily armored with spines.

Choosing who’ll make the cut and who gets left behind is tough.

Don’t throw your back out hauling too much; remember you can always, um, purloin new cuttings* and start anew.

*English garden writer Christopher Lloyd used to refer to plants grown from pilfered stock as “Irish cuttings”, a term that’s found its way into our family lexicon (and which may not have endeared Lloyd to a portion of his readership).

9

I don’t have quite the same relationship with my plants, but I hate leaving them behind when I move, too. We moved houses within the same neighbourhood four years ago, so I can go back and see what the new owners have done to my babies, and it breaks my heart. This is my old yard - this summer they skirted the spruce trees in the front - the pine at the forefront was from a friend and a couple of feet tall when we got it, and the blue spruce in the back that they tortured was one that we had raised from a baby. The big white spruce had an ongoing problem with spider galls - we were fighting the good fight, but since the new owners are doing nothing, the tree will probably die soon.

And for the record, that yard did NOT look like overgrown hell when it was my yard! :mad:

10

Thanks for starting this thread. I love plants too, though in my case it’s mostly the outdoor vegetables, so they don’t survive the winter. Nevertheless I can understand your attachment. I would take some of your plants with you and leave others behind, in the hope that the next residents will continue to support and derive happiness from them.