We have moved 4 times and I bring truck loads of plants. Sometimes just a division but always some of everything-perennials, day lilies, hosta. And boxes of rocks-I collect them every time we go on a trip.

We moved one time in a severe drought and I didn't dig a favorite little azalea and have regretted it ever since-I went back to get a cutting and the guys that bought the house let it die. It had blue star shaped flowers. I got it from an elderly lady selling plants on the side of the road and it was suppose to be coral bells but was a mystery azalea that I have never found.

Enjoy them now and take them with you. Most will survive in a pot until you get their new home ready.

I say, keep buying, keep planting, keep enjoying them as if you are not moving. When the time comes, take them all if that is what you wish. I certainly would. My daughter and I dug up over 70 hostas recently in prep. for her move. They are currently in bins, pots, whatever containers we could gather. No fuss included...just a bit of dirt to cover roots. All growing as if they were planted, lol! Filled holes with either perennials from my garden or such and filled in other areas.

Count another Yes from me. :-)

Yes from me. I probably would not dig up the whole hosta on my very large mature ones but would take a good chunk. The smaller ones, I would lift the whole thing. I have a suburban yard which is entirely landscaped and the purchasers might not like the idea of me digging them all up. I guess pot them up in the fall an d move in the winter and they would never know what they are missing. Lol

A neighbor with a beautiful garden full of hostas built a new house & moved a lot of hostas..when I offered him some pots he gave me some Little Wonder that I love & enjoy to this day..the new owners did NOT appreciate the remaining plants..they ripped everything out & put in a putting green & lawn..sad that they didn't offer the hostas to neighbors..so in hindsight he should have moved ALL of his hostas..

YES.

Didn't Ken move 1,500 of them when he moved????????

-Babka

1650 pots ... vast majority hosta ...

NEVER AGAIN ...

ken

Yes...I only have about 30 and many are in pots already :D

I was just helping my aunt move about a dozen yesterday. Only 3 with big round crowns, the rest were just 1-3 eye chunks. Still, it was super hot...mucky sweaty work!

I would do it several times over even so. Not actually that hard if you have tape and a good shovel, and the plants are so ridiculously forgiving. Also you may be able to do it in the off-season.

I would definitely take divisions of my favorites hosta, daylily and iris and geranium and.......

sherry

My aunt moved last summer from A house with full sun where she had a daylily farm with thousands of daylilies. She now lives in a mostly shady lot at the lake. She recently told me how sad she is that she did not bring more of her daylilies with her, although she doesn't really have a good space for them since she is not allowed to plan anything on most of the property leading down to the lake where it is actually sunny. To help her feel better, i've been sharing with her many of my hostas, ferns, toad lilies, and other shade-loving plants! Your hosta collection is quite an investment, and the chances that a new owner would appreciate them like you do are pretty slim. When and if I move, I will definitely be taking divisions of many of my hostas and other plants. However, you're beautiful gardens will also be one factor in the sale of your house most likely ( even if the purchasers don't have a green thumb and care about maintaining them). My recommendation is to take divisions but leave part of most plants for the new owners, and hopefully they will cultivate a love for gardening also.

I guess it depends how far away you moved...I would definitely take my most treasured ones. When my neighbour moved away, she told me I could take whatever plants I wanted from her yard...I regret only taking snippets of a couple of plants. The new owners have not maintained the property at all and most of her choice plants have died.

I would take as many as I could! Some are slow growers, and I wouldn't want to start with a small plant again. It would break my heart to have to leave any.

That's a good point Nicholsworth55 and Donna----you never know what the new owners are going to do. Make no assumptions!

Yes I would. I grow in pots and it is easy. When I moved from California to Florida I told my husband that ALL the cactus had to come too ( I had not discovered hosta yet ). I bare rooted the smaller ones and packed into boxes and the larger ones stayed in the pot. He drove the truck, my brother in law drove the car and I flew ..... with the baby. My baby is now 32 and if I ever move again it all comes with me. I will hire movers.

It scares me to leave plants with people as they will likely be dead soon. The plant not the people. Until I trust you I will dance around giving a slip or cutting when asked.

I've got 250+ pots in my garage waiting to go......

That's a question we've been going in circles with. My DH retires next year, and wants to trade our wooded acreage for one of those active 55 places - the kind where you have a tiny yard and pay to have it maintained. I intend to dig my feet in for a few more years. If we do move, I'll try to take divisions of 20-30 favorites, and have a big plant sale before the house goes on the market. People admire the garden, but very few want to spend hours working on it every day. My hosta and other gardening friends will be happy to have new plants, and the house will be more sellable.

I will say look at your garden with a critical eye. We had a friend with a yard full of hostas. They were just in a big border around the yard, one of each kind. Her empty house was on the market for months. Her realtor told her the hosta collection was the problem, and she ended up selling the whole thing to some guy for $3.00 a plant. So if you think you might move, put some effort into an attractive layout.

Someone here once posted they had a huge Hosta garden for decades and then moved. They left most everything and to their horror the new owners razed the Hosta garden and planted trees or something.

I consider how much work my garden is and realize only a hostaholic would keep it up, and the odds of one buying the house you're selling are not in your favor.

Plant like you'll be there forever, take what you can when you move.

I have, and would again... I still have a part of my first hosta.

Love it, newhostalady. Your heart waxes like mine over gardening. I'm happiest when I'm out there, planting. The sounds, the sights, the songs, and the life dramas I watch unfold every day I'm out there. May the day never come I'm gardenless.

"Plant like you'll be there forever, take what you can when you move." I like that hostatakeover!

Makes me think of this quote:

"Sing like no one is listening.
Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody’s watching,

and live like it’s heaven on earth."

oh yeah sure... I danced like no one was watching. My court date is next month...

Yes but if some of them are cultivars easy to find and low cost, might be easier to buy new ones vs digging/replanting/Babying til established. So depends on how you want to allocate resources

Most of mine would move with me.

Thank you all for your thoughts and advice. We'd move within the same state (D.C. area), so I think I will take what I can! I'm just getting started, so I'd hate to get to a point where I'm able to see things really thrive and then leave them behind. That always seems to be the case, plus no one will love them like me!

Ken, holy cow! I'm exhausted just reading about that.

I'd absolutely take all my favourites which is quite a few! Ummm, maybe all of them actually. But I've only got 44 varieties.

I've moved twice in the last 7 years, each time my plants moved with me.

I grow mainly in pots so not too much of a problem.

Hardest part is finding a removal firm willing to take it on.

I foresee one more move in this lifetime. I'm not getting any younger and five acres is a lot of work to maintain.

I'm going to hire a truck and move the plants myself wherever I go. Just got to find a small house with a large shady garden.

Dave

I moved to a larger home with acreage of land after living in a mostly shady small suburban lot for 20 yrs. I was told by the realtor to downsize the gardens so it was a good suggestion since I was taking my hostas anyway.

I had styrofoam coolers that I put the fall leaves in the bottom and purchased bags of top soil on top of the leaves. I took the ones that were not easy to replace. I moved about 100. I do not collect Hostas, I buy them by the 10 ft rule I can name the hosta without tags. The Hosta has to be different than what I have in the garden,

I have already done it.

Moving is a challenge. To add the gardens to the list would be overwhelming. In the end if you have any dirt at the new place, most here would be horribly sorry if they did not take at least divisions of their favorite plants. After 15 years here I got the itch to move on and for sure the one thing I look at when shopping new property, the potential for a garden. Sadly as shared, most of our gardens will not be loved as we loved them when we move on. They will be neglected, turned under for grass etc. The garden I had in our previous home was turned to grass for easier mowing within a year of our leaving. I was grateful the new owner did offer the plants to the neighbors and a dear one brought me some of them. The question of CAN you comes up..if you want anything it needs to be potted and set aside before you put the home on the market. That can lengthen their stay in pots by months depending on the housing market. Yes replacements are readily available in garden centers everywhere...but when you know you have a spot, and you know the new owner will not take care of them, how can you NOT make the attempt? As we age our energy for such a task dissipates. If you had asked me this even five years ago my answer would have been more energized for a resounding YES!!

Here's my plant moving experience- when I retired and left South Florida I had so many orchids/bromeliads/rhipsalis/other tropicals that I has sentimental attraction to. I had them in baskets, tied into trees, mounted on fences- everywhere.

I bought many of them with me. I bought an indoor humidity chamber thingamajiggy, I bought high intensity lighting, I bought fans, heatmats, and all the other accoutrements necessary to keep them happy.

Well, it costs me a damn fortune to run the lights all winter.

I still have them here eight years later. They bloom and seem relatively happy, but I am sorry I brought them. It's a lot of work moving them in and out multiple times each shoulder season to keep the lighting costs down and I'm just over it. I am seriously thinking about listing them on eBay just to find them decent homes in areas where they actually belong.

So my answer regarding moving my hostas would be "Only if they fit in the new climate and can find a permanent home in the new landscape."

If I ever move again it would likely be to the desert Southwest, so hostas... no. I would not move them.

I told my husband that if we ever move, I am taking whole garden with me.

He denied great job offer in Maryland area. And in Colorado Springs.

LOVE your post, NHL! Have seen that quotation many times but it is so appropriate here!

Smorz, laughed out loud! :D

We are selling and building not far . I started dividing and potting last summer. 55 of my favorite hostas spent the winter buried in pots in the veggie garden. All have been planted and all survived, along with 25 peonies, 15 daylilies, azaleas and at least 100 other perennials...all are healthy and happy. I'm so glad we did this!

Wow! I am with my people! My dream would be to find a house that had a previous gardener and an established landscape. I find that I'm drawn to homes I see for sale that have gardens, but it's harder to find garden lovers who put their houses up for sale. In the last 2 homes I lived in (in Florida), I built GORGEOUS gardens, only to be neglected and removed by the next owners. It broke my heart. There should be specialized real estate listings for gardeners! These aren't just houses, it is our souls up for sale.

I'm so happy to be amongst a group of people who feel the way I do. In this case, I am downsizing. We are on 4 acres now, and would like to downsize. But it may happen next year or in 2 or 3. In the meantime, I am taking hostatakeover's advice:

"Plant like you'll be there forever, take what you can when you move."

I know a lot of people have to tag their Hostas. I think if you have to have a name tag then you have something that is not all that special. I do not buy a hosta just because it has a name. The Hostas I buy are special to me and look different than what I have.

I planted a memorial garden to my Mom and it is one of my Hostas gardens. I have praying hands for my mom and hanky panky for me and other hostas that relate to my connection to my Mom.

Yes, I can ID mine (about 100) w/o tags for now, because I look at them every day at least once and sometimes twice! THEN have something in your life disrupt you for a while. Good luck after that . Or if you have some look alikes. Frances Williams and OBL, I have about 100 hostas. Try to tell me the difference between , say, Sleeping Beauty (a bonus hosta) and El Nino or First Frost . Or Justine and June Spirit, or, say Blue Ivory and Great Escape. Or the Liberty look alikes like Majesty and a few other wide margined Sagaes. The list goes on.

What I am saying is do NOT let your memory label the plants. Do so with a map or tags if you care about accuracy. If not, then, no, don't let it worry you if that isn't important to you.

-Babka

" I think if you have to have a name tag then you have something that is not all that special."

Or a gazillion cultivars of a zillion species, a memory that cannot be trusted, plus the burning need to know what everything is.

All of my plants are special. I love all of them. But I collect a lot of different species of things and am of the age where my memory sometimes drops the ball.

I have been caught forgetting the name of say a dalily during non-blooming period and had to wait a year to see what variety it was and it drove me absolutely nuts. So I map and list everything and tag many things as well. In one respect tagging even conveys a sort of significance, saying "I am not a mutt. I am something. I am loved enough to be given this spot and have it marked in my honor for all to see."

So I disagree with you :)

Babka, the look-a-likes is what I do not do. That is what I meant when I said I do not buy hosta just because it has a name. If it looks like what I already have and cannot tell the difference I do not buy the hosta. I would rather buy 3 of one I like than 10 hostas that look like what I have. The example is June. I love, Love Love June. I have 3 of them in different gardens.

cearbhaill, I understand I know a lot of gardeners that like to tag. They look like grave stones to me. I think of the gardens when I see all those metal tags standing tall as a cemetary and not a garden. I always think why don't they bury those tags under a rock or something instead of standing up looking like a tombstone.

Then you see cut up blinds sticking up above the plant with names, Now it looks like one of those 1950 western graveyards of some poor pauper that was gun down on the street. I know I am weird with a strange imagination.

gardengrlz, I am sorry I did not mean to hyjack your topic. Take your Hostas with you. I especially was glad I took mine with me because they were old and I knew they were disease free. Even a easy to find Hosta is a risk buying now if you have a disease free one it is a something you do not have worry about.

I moved a few years ago. the agreement when I sold the house was to leave the plants..I divided what I could and left the rest. I took about 30 total. I have since went back and looked at the house and the new owners have pretty much killed everything I left..If your going and your able to I would take all I could. If I moved from my current garden Id rent a uhaul just for plants

My look-alikes are for different reasons, not names. It might have been touted as "looks like xxx but is more vigorous, or can handle more sun, doesn't get as leggy or get edge burnout. " etc. I get some that look alike BECAUSE I like that look and I want a successful plant here in my less-than-ideal growing conditions. My Blue Ivory was super duper for a few years, then began to get more green misting, so I tried Great Escape. It now too is getting misted, and this year came up strange.

-Babka

I am in my 15th house (I think lol), I am in my forever place and the question is moot for me, I won't be moving with or without my hostas and they will take me away from here in a box.

When I moved here ten years ago this year I brought three pickup loads of plants, trees, shrubs, bulbs and only one hosta, my mothers U. Albomarginata not that I knew its name back then (ah such innocent times!).

As for the subject of hosta labels, well I like to, even if I know their names, I'm kinda living in my own little pretend Botanical gardens and am happy in my delusions!

We will be listing our house by the end of summer. I am potting hostas that have sentimental value, gifts from kids or DH or that I got for myself that I've always wanted. I can't dig up all the wonderful trees so the hostas and hellebores will get moved. I learned with my last home sale that I can't decide after the deal is done, the plants I want to take need to be viewed as non permanent when the buyers see the house. The agent warned me not to strip the place lol.

We also will be listing our current home, most probably in 2017.

Yipes, Don. Collecting empty pots now, are you?

tj

"I have since went back and looked at the house and the new owners have pretty much killed everything I left."

I revisited my prior home while in Miami for a concert a couple of years ago and it was depressing beyond belief. I vowed right then never again.

Then the home was listed for sale and I saw backyard photos- and was saddened beyond belief. These people fell in love with the gardens and overpaid for the house because of them and then proceeded to neglect everything until it reverted to utter chaos. And after I left them a notebook full of instructions...

I guess it all serves to remind us that everything is temporary and today is the best day of all to enjoy our gardens. In that spirit, I'm going out to pull weeds and revel in today.

cearbhaill, I can understand how terribly sad that would have made you feel. Could it be that the new owners of the house had had good intentions in regards to the gardens, but then something happened and life became very challenging? Or maybe they loved the gardens, but never realized the work involved in maintaining it?

Along the same heartbreak---after my husband's parents died we sold their house. The new people said they would "try" to keep the bungalow and renovate it. Within the year, they torn it down and built a monster two storey. Gardens gone too.

So take what you want from your garden when you move. If you can't take it, you have the choice to find a new home for some of the plants. After that, it is out of one's control and one can only hope for the best.

This is similar to why I'm doing it differently this time. My last house was my first with a garden I planted and learned in. It was small but very pretty. I sold the house in February. After the deal was done I said something to my agent about claiming some of my favorite plants, she told me they were now part of the deal so I had to forfeit anything that wasn't in a pot of some sort. So I did and moved out as scheduled the first of March. My friend who still lived next door called me about 2 weeks later to inform me all of my dormant hydrangeas, my contorted filbert and a few other dormant plants were all stacked at the curb. The new clueless owner thought they were all dead and dug them up and tossed them out. So this time I'm thinking ahead and potting now! I'll put cheapo big box plants in any major gaps as I've learned most people won't know or care as long as there is something green!