I think the original statement was pretty general, and could in some cases, be true. Overall, I feel like I save some money from my gardening. Initially, there was some "capital outlay" for tools. We splurged and bought a used Troy-bilt tiller the third year we had a garden. But we still have it 12 years later, and it's made short work in creating new gardens at our last two houses. I buy some seeds cheaply, but do sometimes splurge on new varieties as I enjoy trying something new. (This is part of health benefits--relaxation, doing something I really enjoy!). I have tried, in most cases to do things as cheaply as possible--I make compost, recycle containers, start lots of my own plants. If I charged for the plants I give away or tried to sell extra produce instead of giving it to friends, I could probably completely offset my input costs, but I get pleasure from giving those things away. As my boys have grown, I've had to work my gardening in around their activities; so I don't always get things done in the garden when I'd like which probably reduces my yields. I still do way more canning and freezing than the average working mom, and I love to watch my friends eyes grow round when I pop the lid on a pint of homemade salsa in January. Putting it all together, I'd say the health and economic benefits of the garden outway the costs for our family.

Thank you guys for your nice comments! Jon, I also like the 'Sweet Gumball' most of all. It's the most tight one of all and I remember well that the scion for grafting was very small, only 1 inch long! It has a very good potential for using in small gardens and it will even look very good in a rock garden as well. The 'Mighty Mushroom' has a very bright blue colour indeed. I can see now that it's shape will become like the original witches' broom which was huge with a very nice shape! The variegated pine in the background is a Pinus peuce 'Aureovariegata'. Jay, don't worry about plants comming back home someday. The same ones were also grafted in the U.S. but I don't know what their grafting results are at this moment. I know you've to be crazy to go to the UP in winter time. But remember, at the end we collected a nice amound of brooms of several species which will have a great value for us witches' broom hunters. All together it was worth the cold and effort to collect scions of them, and ofcoarse the fun we had together which was the most enjoyable thing if I'm looking back to these expeditions... If you're sitting at home on your bud you will never find a nice witches' broom for sure :0) Al, you're right, the hard work payed off into a nice variety of Tamarack witches' brooms which will be availlable for collectors very soon. The whole proces was fun: First you've to spot the brooms, then the scion collecting begins which is most of the time far from easy. The grafting results are very various from eachother, this is differend per broom. It's also very possible that the growing habit of a grafted broom is much differend from the original one, that's why research is very important! The good ones will be selected for a furthur propagation which will be most of the time much easier then from scions of the original broom. This is because they're growing in much better circumstances so scions are thicker and full of energy. Alex, I remember one of my U.S. fellow broomhunter friends says to a reporter of a radio station": "you don't have to be crazy to do this kind of thing, but it will help for sure" :0) The brotherhood of witches' broom hunters are all people with the same interest, from which there are only a few dozen in the world. Maybe the witches' brooms were hanging there in the trees as toys waiting for us to find them :0) The ones planted in my Pinetum will be observed for 2 years. This year they will be observed without any pruning, next winter they all will get pruned heavy like a pollard-willow to see how they will develop into a nursery way of growing which are nice plants with a good saleable shape. I think all will be released, but I want to find out which broom is suitable for which garden which are divide in categories; big garden, small garden and rock garden. The ones you mentioned are having allready a nice shape without pruning them. So far the 'Manestique' is weird with it's two different types of new foliage which will be very interesting how it will develop in future time... Dave, the ones shown here are not from last January. Like you observed well, I've a very good growth on them which is the result of a combination of several nurseriemen tricks ;0). Prior to our work only the 'Hartwick Pines' and the 'Arethusa Bog' were availlable in a commercial way in Europe. This is because the Horstmann Nursery introduced them here in the 80ties but now they're faded away and are rarely seen in collections nowadays... Also in the U.S. true broom forms of this species are rarely seen at nurseries. This is because of a lack of interest but also the grafting result isn't that hight if you don't do it in the right way. The 'KBN W.B.' from Greg Williams is also a rare one among collectors. That you have it in your collection will not say that its easy to find, this is because the main sources are gone. The same counts for the other broom forms which are mentions in the RHS books, you see them rarely in collections nowadays... On the other hand there are several Larix laricina witches' brooms seedlings selected by the late Sidney Waxman. He selected several good ones like: -'Beehive' -'Blue Sparkler' -‘Deborah Waxman’ -'Nana' seedlings only numbered. -'Newport Beauty' These are much more common in the trade and more easilly available because as witches' broom seedlings they're way easier to propagate then true witches'brooms which were collected in the wild at first. Thanks for your complimnet for the nice work! Josan, you're right about the seedlings from Sidney waxman, like said before they're more common in the trade because of much better propagation results. I visited Joe Stupka last winter, but he didn't mention something about a Larix laricina broom. Do you know the names of the ones he found? You mentioned that you found many Larix laricina brooms when you lived in Minnesota. Finding them is one thing, to collect scions of them is another ;0) My buddy Erik spotted over a 100 brooms of Larix x marschlinsii (L. decidua x L. kaempferi), but most of them are hanging way too hight to reach them by ladder and pole pruners, but several nice ones were collected last winter and are succesful progated as well. Next year I'll show a topic of this result. I wish you good luck in grafting the brooms of the southern pines and hope you'll show us your results as well later on here at this forum. This post was edited by coniferjoy on Sun, Aug 11, 13 at 16:45

I think Doug brings up some excellent points. With this hobby, you need to be cognizant of which aspects you most enjoy, then prioritize prioritize prioritize. Otherwise you end up wasting time and resources on projects you will later scrap. Growing Hoyas from seed uses up a lot of space, requires a lot of checking-in, and results in plants that are (usually) of limited trade value. To me it makes perfect sense that Doug, who specializes in blooming Hoyas, and painstakingly sharing his strategies and photography, would have little time to monkey around with seeds. On the other side of things, growing from seed is quite interesting to me, and I'll explain why. For me, growing Hoyas is less about raising champion plants, and more about learning about the genus as a whole. I have a big collection because I want to see as many representatives as possible and explore their characteristics and adaptations. That's also why I like to obtain multiple collections of the same plant. It's interesting to me how it has developed differently in different locations. I probably won't ever approach proper scholarship, but I have an academic mindset and would like to understand more about what these differences imply. Therefore, raising seedlings is another fun data set to play around with and learn from. So, if I were going to make a beer analogy, Doug would be the brewer, and I would be the geek hitting microbreweries and posting on beeradvocate.com That said, now that I'm moving and will have more space, I am going to take a big page out of Doug's book, set up a more intensive grow space and push my plants a little harder. So far no luck on my Aleya seeds germinating, so it's been a bit of a wasted investment this time around. That's not to say I wouldn't try again, but I would definitely save my trials for species that were maximally interesting to me, so the gamble is worth it.

Pennyrile, yes I have had slow to sprout seeds later sprout when I planted something else in the potting soil, but it is usually easy to tell which seedling was the slow starter because it will come up in a different place then where I planted the new seed. I always dump the potting soil I am going to reuse in a big bin I use to store it and mix it up so usually the seed will be buried really deep when I reuse it. I have even had slow to sprout seeds finally sprout after I transplanted the new seedling out into the garden. Your comment about packed for 2009 brings to mind a question. Was that seed actually produced in 2008 for sale in 2009 or is it old seed from previous years that was tested and repacked? The reason I ask is I asked Armstrong if they had any year old seed they were selling at a discount and they said no, they send all unsold seed back to the vendor. But what does the vendor do with it? Do they throw it away, or test it for germination rate, put it in a new package, and resell it, or maybe sell it to cut rate seed companies, or mix it with some fresh seed and resell it, or what?