My name is Rosebush and I’m a plant hoarder...anyone else?

[BarkingUpTheWrongRoseBush]

It’s just occurred to me that I’m a terrible plant hoarder. I can’t say no to a cutting from a friend, always fall for sale emails from nurseries, love a browse round a garden centre and never leave empty handed, always look at the b&q poorly shelf, I nurture plants that a probably just need composted.

As a result my quite small garden is full of pots, seed trays, my window sills are bursting and my borders are way too full and noth8ng has room to grow and breathe.

It never looks finished.

Anyone else? Do I need help? Do I need to learn to let go? Sell things? Leave out for free t9 good home?

I realised a few weeks ago that I too am a plant hoarder. Not to the extent that my borders are full to overflowing but I do buy/obtain/propagate plants and have them in pots ready to plant.

I moved several years ago and brought loads of things with me from my last garden but didn't plant them out because work needed to be done on the house first. This year we have dug out several new beds but I've not got round to planting everything I've got in pots out yet and I'm still compulsively buying!

My idea of a grand day out is a visit to a garden, some cake and buying a new plant or 5 😀

This comes to mind (I also have too many plants)

Yes OP this is me too! Plants are my obsession and every now and then I realize how crazy it is because I don't technically have a garden since I rent, so I've filled my landlords garden with plants gradually over the years. I didn't mean to but they outgrow their containers and I think, oh I'll just squeeze this little plant in here surely no-one will notice then suddenly I realize there's shrubs, rose bushes and small trees where previously it was flat lawn. It's managed through an agency so he's not seen it since I moved in, so I often wonder if I'll be in trouble at the end of the tenancy! I also have an allotment filled with plants and far too many plants in containers and houseplants that will be awkward when I next have to move. I can't seem to help rooting down, I find myself taking cuttings and planting seeds even with no idea where I'll put them. I think it might be an addiction of some sort. Catname that is my idea of a grand day out too!

Oh yes, I'm guilty as charged! In fact last night I've just taken out a deutzia, pink marbled photinia and a holly because there simply wasn't enough space for them. I still have acers, choisyia, hostas, roses and pieris in pots, which ideally should be in the garden.
I think that there is a need to be fairly ruthless with things that don't do well or are in the wrong place, but I struggle with it. I've also decided to only plant things I really love, but there are so many lovely plants, it's not easy!

I'm so glad I'm not alone.

Yes, I tried that, planting only things that I love...well it turns out I love everything.

My only excuse it that we moved last year, basically because I'd filled the back yard and it was a struggle to get out the back gate...so I badgered DH into a house with a garden.

So I had lots of pots with things waiting to go in the ground ... they haven't all made it in yet as we are getting work done on the back garden.

And I take cuttings, and the are really good at taking.

I must be more ruthless though.

In my head I will oneday end up with a garden with everything in its place. And not a whole tray of cosmos looking at me with a 'well...where are you planning to put us then' air.

love that cartoon.

I'm definitely selective about what I buy and I've learned the hard way about accepting every cutting from someone's garden (when you realise you've unleashed a triffid). Currently I'm trying to eradicate every seedling of Orange Hawkweed (Pilosella aurantiaca) I can find in any of my old pots, and undecided on planting any Valerian or Leycesteria because, although they are lovely and good for the birds and butterflies, they get everywhere.

Do you have any favourite charities you could sell some of your plants to raise money for? Might ease the pain of saying goodbye to them or allow you to ramp up the obsession for a good cause.

I am very guilty of overplanting because I then won't have to deal with the weeds but I'm just about to move a Convolvulus and Alchemilla Mollis as I really was just trying to cram them in when I originally planted them out. Then I've got a Physostegia and Hakonechloa Macra to go in. I bought them as plug plants and have grown them on but there's a real danger they might expire because of the heat recently. Sometimes I might as well stand on the corner and throw tenners away

I know what you mean about throwing tenners away....was down at dawn this morning batting slugs off the plug plants I'm growing on. I don't want to expensively feed slugs...

And now I've just looked up Physostegia and thought...ooh that looks nice....

I have found my people. I have trained myself to be more selective about what I acquire and what I plant, but it's been a long struggle.

I keep buying roses. And the most difficult,t thing -trees
I'm currently on the look out for a narrow ( so I can slot it in) tall (because the neighbours have coppiced thei lovely maple tree, I actually cried when they did it, it was gorgeous. Im thinking of planting another crab apple.
I a
So want a Yuletide camellia, probably in a pot.

Oh dear. Now I’m pondering how much I need a standard rose.

I walk past 2 gorgeous standard roses on my way to work. They look stunning.

We moved into a house three weeks ago where the previous elderly woman owner was just like you, OP.

We couldn’t open the patio doors because of all the pots on the steps in front of them.

I’m only just making inroads, and have handed over several ceramic pots on Freecycle that didn’t even have anything in them, just compost!

I have eight pots of flowering Reed Canary Grass - there’s already plenty planted out in the garden so I will probably offer them too. I can’t wait to have a clear path to the end of the patio!

Same here. I think this was exacerbated by lockdown where the only places we could go were garden centres and I can never leave empty handed. And so also began my new obsession with houseplants as well. Still...there are far worse habits to acquire 😅

My husbands like this, it drives me nuts. He’s constantly ordering plants on line and pops to the garden centre most weeks. He also forgets he’s bought some, so when they are delivered he can’t even remember buying them.

Other than buying petunias I tend not to be the same, I buy occasional very big plants and pots, which balances out his avalanche of tiny little pots.

Oh dear, what can the matter be?
Too many rose bushes under the Apple tree.

And I've just bought 2 more. I think I may need help😁

Not just me then. My garden looks like bring a plant party. Had to start the garden again after building an extension, couldn't throw out my old friends, but also wanted to sort of start afresh too. There are more pots now, and I can't help stuffing more than one thing in them I have the help of a friend who is into sort of elegant minimalism, restful shapes etc. who is making me swear not to buy anything else, but I can't resist. I have stuck to a colour palette though so can't be that bad. I love growing things from seed. Coming to the conclusion I should have a stall in the front garden next year.

I'm dreadful for this. Pots and pots of seedlings I don't have a home for and can't pass a plant sale without seeing something i love.

We have a fairly large lawn and each year i nibble away at a bit more of it to create herbaceous borders or soft fruit beds or wildflower areas...I wonder at what point DH will realise that the lawn has just become a path through all my planting

My name is viques and I am a plant hoarder. I have a serious hellebore addiction, which is only kept under control because my helleborder is full.

Did an emergency garden centre visit with 10 minutes to closing last night

Straight in £20 later

I don’t have £20 spare what the fuck is wrong with me. My logic “money well spent to keep the weeds down”

Me too!

We sold our house with a decent sized garden (approaching a third of an acre) three years ago and bought a rural cottage with a huge amount of outside space. The estate agent described it as a "magical garden", but in fact it was just an overgrown mess full of enormous trees (more than three times the height of the property), laurels left to run wild and weeds 🙄

In amongst it all we found a few treasures - a massive pink rhododendron, 20' Acer, one rambling rose and a few perennials. We'd brought about fifty plants in pots from our previous house and intended to put the majority in the ground thinking naively they'd fill loads of space. We actually began working on the garden simultaneously with the cottage (a repossession that needed a ton of work) so we'd have somewhere pretty to escape to from the daily grind of DIY renovations.

And so the next huge drain on our finances began, lol! The plants we brought with us, got swallowed up in no time. So far we've spent in excess of £10k on the garden - a large proportion of which has been on plants. For example, we've bought over 50 David Austin roses alone 😮

I've definitely got a problem, lol, although DH isn't much better as he can't visit a nursery, garden centre or DIY store (or even the supermarket as he came home yesterday with two trays of lobelia from Tesco!) without succumbing to a plant purchase or three.

Thing is, we've only scratched the surface so far and while the garden looks miles better than before, it still needs the same amount of £££ and some chucking at it!

Last week we cut back a 3m deep laurel hedge to increase the size of our mini orchard - looks great but means we'll need to buy more fruit trees!

I'm also growing perennials/annuals/veg from seed in a polytunnel and can't get the beds ready quick enough to house it all, lol 😂

The garden centre is one of my favourite places to visit and I never leave without at least one new plant.
I went yesterday for some plants for some small pots hanging on our fence and I did get those, but also both of these, which definitely won't fit in the pots.
How am I supposed to resist them though?! 😂

I rent and that itself is an extra issue.
You get an overgrown unloved garden to love and nurture for a few years and move on to the next. So you don’t want to spend a fortune. Yet you love it and want to enjoy it. Yet can’t do the things you’d want to do.

It also means I have a pot collection that could rival the ancient Greeks. Last move was a nightmare for garden stuff 😬 they were also flattening my last garden to put flats so that broke my heart as well

No, you are not alone.

I’m fortunate though, because my two dogs love helping in the garden and killing plants, so there is always a spot that has a half eaten something or the other.