Well ,when it comes to collection I am an oddball.
I collect data research and genealogy on plants as well
as plant DNA.Thus far I have over three thousand disc
with information a lifetime of work and a love affair with
the plant world.When I lived in Portland and had my nursery
I would seek out heirloom plants and those that were on endangered
list,Plant history is a big part of my life and the title of my latest
book,"Generation" a look into our plants pass thru our families.

Blueangel

I have a best friend who is the most important person in my life. Seemingly everything I do concerns or involves her to some degree! For example, when I have been building my gardens this year since I bought my house, nearly every plant I have bought or have received, I buy two plants, or divide what was given to me so she can have the same, that way when they grow in our seperate gardens we have pieces of each other there to remember. She helps me decorate my house with things she brings over. We are like a two person swap-meet! She's great though and I treasure her very much, I couldn't have a better best friend. I have cuttings of houseplants that were given to me by her daughter that I still have years later. So, those types of things mean the most to me.

Lyle

It seems every plant I have has a story. Most from friends over the years as we've moved a number of times. My favorite is a mock orange growing in a large pot. In the same container is autumn clematis. My friends mother gave me a volunteer from her mock orange tree and my friend gave me the clematis. So when that pot blooms in the spring I think of Julie's mom and when it blooms again in September I think of Julie. What a wonderful way to remember them... every year, twice a year... even though I haven't seen or talked to them in ages.

When DH and I got married I wanted lilacs. Not going to happen in Atlanta in May, lol... So for our 1st anniv DH bought me lilacs and I carried them around in 5 gallon buckets each time we moved. As we moved over the years I'd plant them if we were renting a house or care for them in their buckets is we were renting an apartment. Then each time we moved from a house I'd leave some behind. When we finally bought our home they went into the ground for good! People use to laugh at me for hauling common lilacs around, they were pretty much weeds where I grew up, but I wouldn't take anything for them. :)

I really like hearing these stories, thank you and keep them coming.
---Keith

before I was born my dad used to fish off the keys occassionally. He brought back a key lime and started a key lime tree from the seed. This was before you could buy key lime trees from Lowes. Then each time we moved dad would take some air layers and the same key lime would go with us. I am now nearly 40, my parents no longer live in Florida and I have a small potted key lime from that original tree. I'm the only one in my family interested in keeping it going eventhough I have siblings that continue to live in Florida where it could be planted in the ground. So, I definitely feel the pressure to not let it die in its little pot on my porch.

It seems like almost everything in my yard carries some form or another of significance. Even when I am spitting, swearing, and throwing garden tools while pulling mint and mint roots, the smell will waft through the air and I am reminded of when we first looked at this house. It seems so long ago and that feeling of not believing the house is finally ours has long since passed. The few things that were planted here when we moved in have a way of bringing me back to those first few moments. Every time the daffodils and snowflake bloom in the spring it takes me back to our first spring here and the sheer delight I felt to see these beauties that I didn't even know existed in the yard. The balloon flowers to follow were equally exciting to see.

The things I brought with me are constant reminders of the beginnings of a fascination that also tagged along. Some items were purchased while learning my way around the retail scene and from the days when I just plucked anything pretty off the shelf and haphazardly threw it in the ground. I must confess, I still find myself doing that sometimes. Other things brought home were gifts from family and friends eager to find something fitting to give to let me know they were thinking about me. My mom tried to get me interested in gardening almost all my life so when finally, at twenty-nine years old, I became interested she couldn't wait to dig up half her yard and send it off in the trunk of my car... every time I visited. My neighbor and I sort of inspired each other through the beginnings of this hobby and I still have chunks of this and that she would bring over. Still others are the remnants of plants I grew from seed the first year I had my little greenhouse.

Of my current plantings, since we moved here, each one reminds me of a moment that makes me smile or in some cases laugh. If it isn't a lesson learned such as, don't buy thirty two of something you don't have a clue where you are going to put, it is a connection I made while browsing the nurseries. Some of these have also come from family and friends again as gifts.

Out of all of my plants, the one that means the absolute most to me is a ball of pink sorrel. My favorite and most bestest neighbor in the entire world gave it to me when we first started gardening together. It is the first chunk of this or that I received from her and boy I have brought it back from near death too many times to count. I think it helps to know now that it isn't shamrock, which is what she was told it was, told me it was, and we had been calling it for five years. We barely knew each other at the time and both of us had little interest in gardening. I know why I got into gardening but I can't tell you what happened from there. We just hung out and worked in each others yards and somewhere along the way our love for gardening and each other grew. We have since moved and are no longer neighbors but we are still friends and keep in contact regularly. She still brings me chunks of this and that when she gets new plants and I the same.

Yeah, I am a little sentimental I guess. I have a long term memory a mile long to store and cherish those little moments. Ask me about anything I grow and I'll have a story. While I hope my skills improve and my yard becomes more lush as the years pass, I hope that one thing never changes. For me, that is what makes all of the work worthwhile!

Hello to another rock collector! I also bring a rock back from almost all of my trips... it's a tradition that goes back to my childhood, when I was facinated by all the rocks I would see in the mountains when my family visited there. In our area of the Pee Dee, we saw mostly sand.

I now live in the SC midlands, in the middle of the sand hill country. We have several different kinds and sizes of rocks... I love to disply them in settings with my container gardening.

Nice to meet another "rock hound"!

I grow purple verbena for my grandmother. I don't know why it had such significance for her, but it did and she told us so often. I also brought her daffodils from the midwest. (Bulbs that might be decades old.) And this year I planted tiger lilies (not the daylilies that go by that name here) for my grandfather. The only plant he ever cared anything about. Still on the list to try are hyancinths (I'm trying to grow the "Roman" kind, but the jury's still out) and peonies. Oh ... and ... of course, I grow hens-and-chicks for my grandmother, too, though far less successfully than she did. Hopefully, one day I'll be able to tackle "old" roses for my mother.

My house, garden and LIFE are crammed full of collections, everything from blue jay feathers to dried leaves and flowers. Somethings end up inside the house above the fireplace, somethings get as far as the front porch, some of the best treasures are found months later while digging in a back pocket. They always seem to be nature based and most often they are treasures that need no justification to anyone standing near me. I get a lot of "Wow! where'd you find that?"

Rocks - I have rocks from around the world. A collection that started when I was a kid growing up overseas. My only complaint is that I never mark them so I cannot tell you which rocks came from which place. Every time I move I wonder how many of this collection are just something pretty I found in a gravel parking lot, or might be the one from the top of Mt. Fuji (where so many people take rocks the parks employees have to haul fresh rocks up every year!).

In my extensive plant collection I think my most cherished are the oddball things I have grown from seed. I have this weird attachment to seeds - I bring them back from EVERYWHERE, it doesn't matter if I know what they grow up to be. Its just the fact that I found it, I sowed it and I grew it. I have plants grown from seeds collected in South America that I have no idea what they are, I can't find them in any book. There is nothing striking or special about the plants, they have never bloomed or done anything special. I've had them for a little more than 6 years!!! All I know is that a friend of a friend's elderly relative had this bush growing in their backyard flower garden in the hills above Bogota, Colombia. It is somewhat frost hardy but can't take a hard freeze. In the past my bizarre attachment to seed grown treasures has yeilded common weeds - I mean common weeds from HERE! Oh but I fussed and fought the good fight for my tender baby and when it finally did bloom I discovered it to be a tropical form of one of our common weeds. Does this discourage me? Not in the least. I sow seeds every season and most often after every vacation.

My other fav's are the plants I bring home from the swaps.

One of my favotite garden books is "Passalong Plants" by Felder Rushing and Steve Bender. Looks like this post is a page out of that book.

Most of my plants have a story too. From Hydrangeas I saved from my deceased mother-in-law's house before the family sold it to spring bulbs I have salvaged from roadsides, old homesteads and soon-to-be-commercial teardowns. I trade, rescue and propogate as my main avenues for acquiring new plants. My method of last resort is purchasing a plant from a nursery. Sorry nursery owners! That's just the way my dad did it and that's how I learned to do it.

The bigger question is, will my son's or their wives or their children be interested in my little green friends and care for them when I complete the circle and become fertilizer?

Great thread.

~Scott~

These are all so great. Thank you.
I remembered a plant I have that had a funny introduction in my garden.
I have to preface this by explaining about my tight-fisted grandfather, Al, whom I lovingly call Jerk-face. JF's main thrill in life is to sit in his 1974 model recliner and see how hard he can pinch a penny. Never, ever, accept any food he offers you, as he will most ashuredly have mixed in a can of leftover beans from the bomb shelter he dug during the Cold War. No kidding. His favorite person is anyone who hasn't been warned about his food.
Since this is a gardening forum, I'll digress. My grandad would no sooner buy a plant then book a flight to Moracco. He has been clipping the same "you're not welcome here" hollies in the front yard since he moved into the house thirty-some-odd years ago. All his trees are seedlings that escaped the mower. The only flowers are from the dreadful red-tips the neighbors put in between them. The entire yard is lack-luster.
Until...
JK was given a cutting of purple heart, (tradescantia.) You'd think he invented the plant himself or found it while on safari. From one little cutting he has ensconced his entire house in a ring of purple. When ever I come to visit I am given bags and bags of cuttings with the ever-present reminder "you just poke a hole in the dirt and put it in! I don't even water them."
By the time I moved from NC in 07 all of my neighbors had borders or clusters of purple heart all over. Now I have moved and wouldn't you know it... I have a purple border too.
---Keith

p.s. about JF... since his dentures don't fit anymore, and we all know how likely it'll be he ever gets them fitted propery, he has taken to eating only the foods he can chew,(or rather gum,) without hurting. One of his favorites is white bread mashed in grape juice, (I know.) The family calls it his own personal communion. ;)