I'm waiting for a ride somewhere so I'll resurrect this thread! In 1993/94 I was working at this plant nursery in Vista, CA called Exotica. It had rare plants from everywhere all over the place (fruits mainly but some kinda unusual ornamentals). At the time I was double majoring in botany and music and I was very interested in ethnobotany. I knew that daturas were complex and used by people around the world so I was kinda intersted in these tree forms (at that time I think we were calling them tree daturas but I dunno if we were just behind the times or what). Anyway, thinking back it is kinda funny because the nursery manager who I was coming in to replace was training me and they had a few kinds -just marked "white", "orange" and this double white "Double White" that no one really thinks is all that these days. Well, back them this was super super rare I guess and she tells me "don't sell the Double Whites for anything less than $60 IF it's a small plant" And I'm all WHAT?! No one has that kinda money to drop on plants. Which is funny cause now I hear of people dropping a couple hundred bucks on rare plants but that was outrageous to me then. I didn't have a place of my own right then (and couldnt afford them even at the super reduced wholesale price of $60) so I'd go to the dessert and check out the jimson weed. I finally got my mom a double white which is still at her house and is quite old now. When they started appearing in home depot it was pretty weird. And when the double white did, it was like the fourth sign of the apocalypse or something. I can't say I am addicted to them per se. Although I do have as many as I can get onto my yard and still be able to walk out there. A lot of people have been pretty helpful. I think Monika Gottschalk the hybridizer from Germany is really helpful with all her info online and her willingness to correspond, post and publish. I've met a few botanists in Germany and the Netherlands who have been helpful as well. And Strybing Arboretum and UC Berk have been helpful with maintaining the species Brugs and making them available. I sitll think I'm sorta a newby though cause everyone else seems to know so much more about the Brugs in particular. I still really suck at virus ID. Well my ride is still not here but I better go!

I've had it since April of this year when I decided that the gardener I paid for 2 years in a row was wickedly overpriced for poor service- I told her I didn't like impatiens, so she planted them in the front foundation and around the back of my house because " it's the only thing that will grow in shade." Well, after money poorly spent, I took myself down to the garden center and bought a few flats of stuff, a few hanging baskets, and after looking at my work decided- " Hey, I'm no so bad, and this is kinda fun!" Then the obsession begins. I'm poring over catalogs, finding online plants, raiding the garden center every other day. Then I'm pulling out ridiculous holly shrubs from the entryway, relocating blue fescues and hostas. Then I'm planting a moon garden where my annabelle hydrangeas are (good start), then I'm assessing the woodland areas, what will grow next to the creek, etc... It's been fun. The most fun is recognizing plants, being able to name them and know something about their growth conditions and habits, especially roadside wildflowers (or some people's weed :) I expect to have an anxious winter wondering what will come back and what the garden will look like next year. I have since learned a little constraint as the budget strains, but next year I am carefully budgeting for the wants and the must haves. Next question- How far as the gardening bug pushed you? What's the craziest thing you've done/spent/said for the love of plants?

Sorry, in that long message I forgot to include if you email me your address and the seed packages you select, I will mail you the seeds.

My mom, who was an excellent public speaker, very comical, very informative, clear ... now can't remember how to ask for what she wants. She asks but uses the wrong words ... for instance, she was asking my 16 year old daughter for pepper steak last night. My daughter is no cook, so she came through to the living room with my mother right behind her and called to me. My mother stood right beside her and asked for pepper steak while looking right into her face. This made my daughter take a step back (while smiling very hard), and of course my mother followed her, also smiling very hard and starting to gesture to my daughter while saying 'pepper steak'. We (my husband and I) couldn't help laughing either ... and so my daughter was laughing and my mother was laughing all the while she kept gesturing to my daughter and looking right into her face very closely saying 'pepper steak'. My husband walked into the kitchen (he's the cook at our house), and my daughter followed him with my mother in tow and eventually they figured out she wanted a smoothie. My daughter makes excellent smoothies and often makes them for our entire family (I have 2 sons at home as well), and this is what my mother knew for a fact, she just didn't know how to ask for it. It was pretty funny and we all had a laugh, but when the laughing was over, I became sad, realizing my mother was losing more and more of her ability to communicate. She is pretty quiet most of the time, and I wish she would talk more often, she still laughs with us when she listens to us talk, and I have to be thankful for that. I at first went through a grieving period, when the realization hit me, I was missing my mother, and I still do ... but I have great memories of her. The memories make me happy, to remember her as she was, and what a wonderful woman she was. For now I am happy she has gotten over the frustrating times when she would struggle to tell us what she wanted, knowing that she was saying it wrong, and trying to find the right words. She is far more relaxed now then she was when it first started, that's the blessing. My mom, I am hurt, I am angry, I am frustrated, and she was the best I could ever have asked for ... so I hide my hurt, my anger, my frustrations. My husband takes very good care of her. He is home with her all the time, and when the kids get home from school, he has time to be out and about doing what he needs to do, and when I get home from work we're all there with her and we have our evening meal together. We're as normal as we can be around her. I don't know how else to be ... it's just the way it is. When things get worse, we will find a way I'm sure.