Some very good points are made above. The only one I disagree with is using ground covers, because they eat other plants. But maybe a groundcover that works is out there and I just don't know about it. As a rabid collector turned home landscaper in pursuit of sanity, I think there is a conversion that has to occur in your own mind. Ink touched on it by pointing out that all your acquisitions are unique, but what I find is you can get past this by thinking of your plants in terms of their shape/colour/size -in other words, their landscaping attributes. These are the ones you see from a distance. For example, a hosta is a low spreading herbaceous plant or an arching one, depending on which one. A certain Chamaecyparis is a blobby gold evergreen thing. A fern is arching, a columnar yew is a vertical evergreen accent. What ANOTHER rhododendron is depends on its structure. Forget flower colour, forget bloom time. Just focus on structural attributes. Then you take the point made by MaryMD about repetition, only you don't repeat plants, just shapes/colours. So you look around the yard from vertical accent to vertical accent, or from gold shrub to gold shrub, only you are looking at a different one every time. Similar to what Nandina suggests, only the plants do it. This recognition is not my own, by the way, but goes back to a discussion here started by Frankie about an article in Fine Gardening about designing a long border...? Maybe that thread still exists, or maybe not, or maybe the article can be found. The unifying effect of hardscape is also something very helpful to utilize. Just edging beds with something like a uniform brick border will begin the process of turning a collection into a landscape - partly because it will immediately make you think about the shape of the bed instead of the name of the plant. To assess the shape of the bed, you find yourself stepping back across the road (watch for cars) to assess the overall effect of the garden. That's the perspective from which you start appreciating plant shape too. Ken Druse has written a book called The Collector's Garden. It's a long time since I looked at it so I can't summarize it, but you might enjoy it. KarinL

by the time you go buy some spray .. why not just chuck the thing.. avoid exposing yourself to the spray.. and buy a new one... they are probably 2 aisles over from the spray at a good nursery or florist ... sometimes its just not worth the exposure ... of course.. now you will add the fact that it is precious for some reason ... what you will NEVER LOVE.. is a house full of bugs all winter long.. trust me.. been there.. done that.. really got to hating the treasured plant ... IMHO.. transfer that love to a new one .... ken

I have learned more in the interim, like the fact that even in a warm climate, it will go dormant over winter (it does that based on the hours of sunlight per day), and then will rot if it is always wet, so I plan to grow it in a pot, and move the pot into a dark corner of our basement for the winter. I had to dig it up yesterday, as it was being eaten by snails. The only stem showing was eaten almost all the way through, but there were leaves and flower buds below the damaged place, so I cut it off and dug it up. Sure enough, there were 2 other stems which stopped (as in chomped off) just at the soil level. So I think I got it just in time. It did have a round tuber. Right now it is in a 1 gal pot on my glassed in porch under an upside down small fish tank which I use for rooting roses. Gets lots of light, but no direct sun. If it survives, I will pot it up into a larger pot. The internet says they need "sharp" drainage, and I found a bag of african violet potting soil I already owned, which has lots of peat moss and perlite in it, so I used that. If it survives and grows into a decent looking plant, I certainly will post more pictures on here. I have thought of another theory as to how it got where it was growing - that was right underneath the place where my ancient, huge Anna Olivier grew for decades. It died (I have 2 bushes growing from rooted cuttings of the old one), and we dug it up. Maybe that area used to have begonias planted in it, and it came from a dormant seed of one of those. That area has definitely been gardened for the past 113 years. I have noticed that when any area in our yard which has been left alone for 50+ years gets dug up, mysterious old garden flowers pop up. It is so fun! Jackie

Mike, the closest I came to heart attack in recent years was soon after I got this Calathea and it SNAPPED up when I was walking by when the sun went down. I must have jumped 10 feet screaming. I mean....plants shouldn't be snapping back and forth! Haha. It doesn't love my arid weather but it does OK for me. I do give it distilled water instead of tap.