Plant Hoarding
It all started when I joined the Master Gardeners in 2010. My wife, Carolyn, decided I needed to get a hobby now that I had retired. I believe I was driving her crazy and she just needed a break from my ominous lectures about what was wrong with our society. Actually I loved gardening but just was not very good at it and my lack of success was getting rather expensive. So I joined the Master Gardeners with the goal of not having to replace all my plants each year--in some cases multiple times a year.
The environment was typical of any educational classroom. The women listened, took notes, asked questions and completed all reading assignments. The men watched the wall clock and concentrated on what snacks were provided for the break sessions. Thanks to peer pressure I actually learned some ways to not kill every living thing in my garden and I was having fun in the process.
The first year my plants survived but that did not slow me down from purchasing new ones, many of which I had no idea where to plant. I convinced myself I was impressing my neighbors by having lots of plants still in their nursery pots scattered around the yard. I eventually decided if I placed them in one area it would impress my neighbors even more to see my whole collection in one place. That was phase one of my problem, about 50 unplanted nursery pots.
Phase two started when I learned how to propagate plants via root division. Though I was limited to a small set of varieties from my yard, day lilies, hostas and lung worts, my collection quickly grew to over 100 unplanted pots. This success did slow me down from buying new plants but forced me to buy a better shovel and start digging a lot more holes.
Phase three started the next year when I began to research alternative methods of propagation than just root division, the main culprit was stem cuttings. This time I added scented geraniums, Mona lavenders, and experimented on anything with leaves. Although I was planting more and more in my yard and giving away as many plants as I could, the number of unplanted pots kept growing and forced me to transplant many of them into larger pots. The collection grew to over 150 unplanted pots.
I now had several problems. One, I had no place to store any more plants, I needed to give more of them away. Two, It was getting harder and harder to acquire free pots. Three, I was spending a lot of money for potting soil, over two cubic yards each year. Just when I thought I had put in a plan to get everything under control I made another discovery.
Phase four started when I started to experiment collecting seeds from my garden. I had little expectations but was shocked when I germinated another 100 plants on my first try that eventually needed to go into pots. Now my collection included agapanthus, more day lilies and some strange looking plants that I am not sure what they are. I panicked, bought another truck load of potting soil and came up with another plan. Again I believed I had everything under control so I purchased a greenhouse.
Phase five officially started. I heard many stories about individuals, men, who over planted tomatoes seeds the first year they got a greenhouse. I was also told to just plant a half dozen seeds of each of your three favorite varieties. Even with that knowledge I proceeded to plant three seed trays of 13 varieties of tomatoes. That with three seed trays of basil, one tray of cucumbers and one tray of peppers I was out of space as soon as they needed to be transplanted to 4 inch pots. In addition I was out of 4 inch pots because I had planted several seed trays of various flowers two months earlier. Luckily my seed germination skills were not as good as my propagation skills and I had a low germination rate due to some rookie mistakes. Probably something that was being discussed in class when I was eyeing a chocolate doughnut on the snack table and trying to come up with a strategy to get it before the guy sitting in the row ahead of me could. He was quicker than me but I got the last laugh when he slipped, dropped it and accidentally stepped on it. Back to my hoarding problem, fortunately I was able to give away excess vegetable plants that survived my lack of skills and decided no one can have enough flowers or tomatoes so I planted them in my yard, unfortunately most of them in pots.
Today, the greenhouse is completely full of cuttings and over wintering plants. The shelves are overcrowded, it’s hard to walk in there due to the floor being completely full of two and three gallon plants and there are over a dozen hanging pots in various states of health. My current problem is soon as I get an open space I can’t help myself from taking more stem cuttings. This is going to cause real problems since it is getting close to seed sowing time.
I have some fears that maybe the greenhouse is just the beginning of phase five, six, seven, ? Wish me luck.
It all started when I joined the Master Gardeners in 2010. My wife, Carolyn, decided I needed to get a hobby now that I had retired. I believe I was driving her crazy and she just needed a break from my ominous lectures about what was wrong with our society. Actually I loved gardening but just was not very good at it and my lack of success was getting rather expensive. So I joined the Master Gardeners with the goal of not having to replace all my plants each year--in some cases multiple times a year.
The environment was typical of any educational classroom. The women listened, took notes, asked questions and completed all reading assignments. The men watched the wall clock and concentrated on what snacks were provided for the break sessions. Thanks to peer pressure I actually learned some ways to not kill every living thing in my garden and I was having fun in the process.
The first year my plants survived but that did not slow me down from purchasing new ones, many of which I had no idea where to plant. I convinced myself I was impressing my neighbors by having lots of plants still in their nursery pots scattered around the yard. I eventually decided if I placed them in one area it would impress my neighbors even more to see my whole collection in one place. That was phase one of my problem, about 50 unplanted nursery pots.
Phase two started when I learned how to propagate plants via root division. Though I was limited to a small set of varieties from my yard, day lilies, hostas and lung worts, my collection quickly grew to over 100 unplanted pots. This success did slow me down from buying new plants but forced me to buy a better shovel and start digging a lot more holes.
Phase three started the next year when I began to research alternative methods of propagation than just root division, the main culprit was stem cuttings. This time I added scented geraniums, Mona lavenders, and experimented on anything with leaves. Although I was planting more and more in my yard and giving away as many plants as I could, the number of unplanted pots kept growing and forced me to transplant many of them into larger pots. The collection grew to over 150 unplanted pots.
I now had several problems. One, I had no place to store any more plants, I needed to give more of them away. Two, It was getting harder and harder to acquire free pots. Three, I was spending a lot of money for potting soil, over two cubic yards each year. Just when I thought I had put in a plan to get everything under control I made another discovery.
Phase four started when I started to experiment collecting seeds from my garden. I had little expectations but was shocked when I germinated another 100 plants on my first try that eventually needed to go into pots. Now my collection included agapanthus, more day lilies and some strange looking plants that I am not sure what they are. I panicked, bought another truck load of potting soil and came up with another plan. Again I believed I had everything under control so I purchased a greenhouse.
Phase five officially started. I heard many stories about individuals, men, who over planted tomatoes seeds the first year they got a greenhouse. I was also told to just plant a half dozen seeds of each of your three favorite varieties. Even with that knowledge I proceeded to plant three seed trays of 13 varieties of tomatoes. That with three seed trays of basil, one tray of cucumbers and one tray of peppers I was out of space as soon as they needed to be transplanted to 4 inch pots. In addition I was out of 4 inch pots because I had planted several seed trays of various flowers two months earlier. Luckily my seed germination skills were not as good as my propagation skills and I had a low germination rate due to some rookie mistakes. Probably something that was being discussed in class when I was eyeing a chocolate doughnut on the snack table and trying to come up with a strategy to get it before the guy sitting in the row ahead of me could. He was quicker than me but I got the last laugh when he slipped, dropped it and accidentally stepped on it. Back to my hoarding problem, fortunately I was able to give away excess vegetable plants that survived my lack of skills and decided no one can have enough flowers or tomatoes so I planted them in my yard, unfortunately most of them in pots.
Today, the greenhouse is completely full of cuttings and over wintering plants. The shelves are overcrowded, it’s hard to walk in there due to the floor being completely full of two and three gallon plants and there are over a dozen hanging pots in various states of health. My current problem is soon as I get an open space I can’t help myself from taking more stem cuttings. This is going to cause real problems since it is getting close to seed sowing time.
I have some fears that maybe the greenhouse is just the beginning of phase five, six, seven, ? Wish me luck.