Obsessive - compulsive! Join the club! Right now I am plotting out how I can stop at nurseries on route to a job that is out of town. Mind you, my back porch and two tables are filled with plants. I literally have to tell myself, "No you don't need that tomato, pepper, eggplant, etc. You already have more than you can plant at home." This sometimes doesn't work. It's a constant battle in my brain this time of year.

I hear ya sister! I have been out of work for a few weeks, and only have a limited amount of money left in my bank account, yet I keep buying more plants! I tell myself it is for food (tomatoes, peppers, etc) but somehow the ornamentals find their way into my yard. My husband calls it my "Pot Ghetto" because I have so many containers of plants!

There has to be a support group for addicts like us. My husband keeps telling me I'm cut off, yet I keep telling myself just one more plant! It's to the point where I'm strategically rotating credit cards so he won't notice a huge garden center purchase.

yup. i've got the same problem. i'm experimenting with strategies to help me cut down. right now i'm working under the following rule: i can't buy or plant ANYTHING that i've already grown before. so, only NEW stuff.

is this helping me cut down on the habit? not really. i just picked up a flowering tobacco plant yesterday. i couldn't resist.

okay. i'm weak and worthless. i admit it. flog me all you want, just steer clear of my castor bean plant...

You would be the saddest person in this universe if anyone cured your addiction.
I'm that way with houseplants. I grow my plants on an awning-covered patio during the summer, and they really show their stuff from all the fresh air!
When it is time to bring them in, it's like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
Sometimes I have to resort to taking cuttings, and discarding the parent plant, just so I can get it in the door. Deal with it!! LOL

OOOHHHH! Can I join the club too? I have very little room left in the garden and have always done up containers for the deck but the past couple of years it has gotten out of control. It started with a little tiny cherry tomato plant and has gown from there. I actually think container gardening is more fun then gardening in the yard. I get to change them every year and get to play around with some really interesting combinations. Plus with no room for a veggie garden, I have started grwoing things in pots. So far I have a huge medium sized tomato plant (don't know the name), several different cherry tomatoes, a purple pepper plant, herbs every where, plus numerous annual planters, plus several perennial planters. I have plants lined up in my driveway waiting to be planted and just yesterday stopped and bought more! I think my problem is I see containers that would make really neat planters and it continues to grow from there. My mother told me a month ago "not as many containers as last year"...yeah right mom. Little do you know about the new containers hidden in the basement. I even have a water garden in a container (plus a pond in the back yard!). Someone take away my car keys, bank card, credit card, car etc. I can't stop!

Brenda

**[QUOTE *=* Erinlisa]I hear ya sister! I have been out of work for a few weeks, and only have a limited amount of money left in my bank account, yet I keep buying more plants! I tell myself it is for food (tomatoes, peppers, etc) but somehow the ornamentals find their way into my yard. My husband calls it my "Pot Ghetto" because I have so many containers of plants![/QUOTE]

Im in the same boat. I got laid off last friday, and ive had 1, 400 bucks to my name. 400 of it went to stuff for my yard (mostly flagstone/ marble inlay)/ containers. Even running this low on funds, I CANT STOP buying plants, soil, more conatainers!!!

were ADDICTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =o) At least were addicts of a GOOD thing! =o)

NPG_7b_8a

Hi,

I just want to offer you all a life line in your struggle with this plant acquiring habit... [g] I found this year, that I have very little interest in what is at the nursery. I have made about 6 trips to different nurseries and spent $7. on one trip and $10 for another, and actually walked out without a purchase on four occasions. I am really amazed at my restraint. Usually by now I have bought a LOT more than that, with plans to buy more. Actually, it has not been restraint, but disinterest. lol I really haven't had an urge to buy plants that I needed to restrain.

How did this happen? This is what I think happened. For one thing, we dug out 120 ft overgrown neglected shrub border last year. It had about 50 maple tree saplings in addition to the old shrubs, which were over 6 ft tall. One forsythia bush that had been there since we moved here in the 1970s, had multiplied from one bush to 15 seperate bushes. We dug everything out by hand with shovels and pick axes. It was a big big job even with three people sharing the work. Took months of spare evenings and weekends. I almost forgot, about the time and effort it took to cut up all the shrubs and bundle them in tied bundles that the town would pick up for disposal.

Once that was done, we had to contend with a 30x30 ft area that due to a perennial weed gone mad, had turned into a 30x30 ft brush pile, with perennial grass weed under it. In that same area we had a patch of vinca that had started out 2 yrs earlier as 4 small plants and was about 8sq ft already so we had to dig that all out. Then we had to collect enough cardboard, to mulch over the whole 120ft border, plus the 30x30 ft area that we cleared of all that brush pile and vinca vine. We did not try digging out the perennial grass because digging it was making it grow more. Our intention was to smother it. It took weeks to collect enough cardboard, then lots of back breaking work to lay it all down and cover with bark mulch. Not to mention the $200 a load of mulch x 3 that we used.

Finally, FINALLY, we had a clean slate. We were able to add some new shrubs that hopefully won't get out of hand. We also went to a spring swap last year and a fall swap and came home with lots of plants carefully considering any that would get out of hand and leaving those particular ones out of the plan. Then last winter, we tried winter sowing. It was a great experiment and a success. This spring, all our little containers were sprouting and I have more plants than I know what to do with. Many of which are varieties of plants that I traded for and I haven't even seen available at the nurseries.

So, the combination of having had to work so hard to get our yard back in control, not wanting it to ever get that out of control again and having tons of seedlings that barely cost me anything at all, and feeling overwhelmed with TOO many plants, has actually quelled my desire to bring home more plants. LOL

So, since this is the container forum and it would seem unlikely that many of you will have an overgrown yard to contend with, maybe just the winter sowing part of the equation, and having tons and tons of plants for very little money might be a step toward recovery. Better than a 12 step program anyway. ;-)

Don't need a yard. I have 240 sq. ft of overgrown balcony with nothing but containers including 21 shrubs and dozens of perennials, forcing me this morning to make 9 trips with a 2 gallon watering can to barely hit-and-lick it all with some water. I haven't even gone through to weed it, although I usualy try to get out there every day to pull them as I see them. Does that count? :-P

It's bad enough to have a sister with 1/3rd of an acre to weed, dig, and plant in and another with an amazing formal garden that I try to sneak plants into. There is such a thing as a group addiction, especially when it comes to being part of a family who gardens together and enables one another! LOL

From nurseryaholicsanonymous.com:

How to stop buying too many plants, impulsively ...

-- Admit that you are a compulsive nursery shopper, which is half the battle, and start buying jewelry and drugs instead
-- Get rid of credit cards, which fuel the problem, and open a line of credit at the nursery under your spouse's name
-- Don't shop by yourself because most compulsive shoppers shop alone; bring along friends and all their trucks
-- Find other meaningful ways to spend time; such as mixing cocktails, flying to Las Vegas, join a street gang, or start a religious cult.

Joe

An addiction indeed!!! I thought I had the answer, this spring. Last fall I found a bunch of those peat pot green houses and this spring I bought a lot of seed packets. I thought, ' start from seed and avoid the huge nersery store bills!' I could fill all my pots for pennies, yes? Well yes I did, but I still could not resist the call of those greenhouse nurtured beauties. Now I had to go out and get MORE pots and soil mix, and shuffle more of our patio furnature into the shade. Even the poor grill is looking like it takes up too much room, and a few pots of zucchini could grow quite nicely in it's place...

Helena

My favorite thread!!!

Joe and Helena, you guys started my morning with a great laugh. "Even the poor grill is looking like it takes up too much room, and a few pots of zucchini could grow quite nicely in it's place..." Indeed!!! Joe, is there really such a web site, or did you do a "gotcha" on me? (Yes, I actually tried to go there.)

Too, too funny.

nancyjean:

gotcha.

There is no such website, no such group.

The first part of each of the tips, though, do come from an addiction info website. I simply added on to each one with an appropriate twist.

Joe

Nancyjean

And you know the worst of it? It's only the two of us and my honey is a meat and potatoes kind of guy and won't touch anything even slighty veggie-like, with a ten foot tomato stake.[and he scowls if I mention making homemade catsup... such heresy!!!] And here I am with 20 tomato plants, 8 zukes, 8 squash, 12 peppers, a whole stock trough of beans, assorted lettuce and herbs in window boxes... and if we stop by Tractor Supply tomarrow, and they still have those nice 25 gallon feed buckets on sale, I might just have to, um, well.... you know.... kinda look at them... and maybe... well... some HOT peppers might be nice, or some cukes, or even winter squash...

Helena

Okay container folks....Go to garden junk forum and see how to take those containers up! I ran out of across space.Hubby told me I could only have another plant if I could find a place for it without moving anything else. HaHa, I found space for 4-8 of them! Now I just spend more gas looking at building sites begging for rebar.

Well my dh is the compulsive one of the 2 of us.He goes out early in the morning b4 i even get up and hits up home depot and lowes.I got up saturday morning and on the front porch were 3 hydrangeas,a crepe myrtle,2 rudebeckias,and a couple others and he was no where to be found.When he came back i said,where are you gonna put those??I don't know says he,but i'll find a place.If he had asked me ,i could have saved him some money especially on the hydrangeas,as i already had 2 small ones i am growing in what i call" my infirmary.

Unlike him,i like to start things from seeds and cuttings,he doesn't have the patients for that!!Good for me though,so i'm not complaining,but i do think it is an addiction!!! LOL
Kathi

Unfortunatly I think me and my sister are heading down the path of addiction, "I'v created a monster out of me and you" she says, "Atleast when the world ends we will know how to grow things, and every body els will have to kill animals who are scary, bigger, and just as hungry as the humans".
Half of my windowsills are coverd in plants, and I have plans for the other half heehee. I can't go to crazy though, my mother has all the money, but she can never say no to her children :P.

What have all you people grown this year? LOL

Sorry, I am gonna bump this up because its very interesting.

I think the real sign is when I buy them and then leave them in the car until I can sneak them in! Oh it is so sad but so gloriuos to be this addicted. Your right I could be out buying jewlery or clothes!

Strange. There's no photos on this thread.

Did everyone spend their camera money on plants?

we were on the first or second iteration of digital cameras back then … and storage of the photos was becoming an issue, if my memory (which I have come to doubt more often of late) serves me.

great stuff

It's an addiction... there is no way to stop it as far as I can see. I have tried and tried to cut back my own collection of container plants... and I have had some success in that I have not made any more purchases... but I can't seem to throw out cuttings when pruning my plants, and so... the multiplication continues.

There should be a chapter of Plant Growers-Collectors Anonymous in every state!

Blast from the past, to be sure... 2006 seems so long ago...

PS - I am seriously considering getting just one bulb while they're on the shelves for the holiday season. I just don't see how I can pass up a mere $3, which I have in coins, for such beauty and enjoyment! ;-)