You Hear Me? I Want Them All!

I swore I wasn't going to do this. I swore. After schlepping plants from house to house for the last 10 years, I swore I wasn't going to do it again. It's always trouble. Not only does digging, potting and transporting them cause a whole 'nother level of packing and moving stress, but you set yourself up for pain on the other side, too.

What happens when you get to the new house is that suddenly you have 482 plants that were slapped into pots willy-nilly just to get them done and now they are desperate to be planted. Desperate. Do you have anywhere to plant them? No.

I mean, sure, you have SPACES. But are any of them ready? Have they been amended, raised, altered, designed, figured out, or whatever else you feel like you need to do before you plant? No. And have you purchased the other plants, the companion plants that you need before you plant the bed? No.

Even if you have a master plan, you can't just polka dot the poor things all over the yard. Not only will they get trampled by stray dogs and kids, they'll look terrible. And inevitably, when you finally do plant the rest of the plants, you'll have done them wrong somehow and the spacing will be wonky, or you'll change your mind, or one of a hundred other things, and you'll have to rip them out anyway so it's no good trying to do it that way.

So the only solution is to get all the beds ready, get all the other plants, and just plant the whole lot. Except you don't have time or money because you just spent your last dime moving and you have to get your bedroom actually functioning instead of sleeping on an air mattress in the family room surrounded by piles of boxes but all you want to do is go out and try to get the garden in shape so you can plant those poor suckers before they just drop from sheer boredom.

But you can't do that on pain of divorce so instead you create this ghetto of transplants somehwere near a hose bib but hopefully not near a vantage point from either inside, the neighbors or the front yard and you water them twice a day and beg them not to die, thus taking the now monumental amount of time and effort you've invested in saving a few bucks and chucking it in the compost heap.

Clearly, I speak from experience.

It is not a good idea.

And yet I'm doing it anyway. I just see all those big empty beds at the new place, and I quickly rack up in my head the overall cost of filling them up, then I add in the excruciating process of waiting three years for the perennials to fluff out because I have to buy the miniscule $2 plants on my budget. And it all adds up to transplanting hell.

I've got these babies stashed all over now. I have some still here at the old house, some at my Mom's house, where she waters them daily (thanks, Mom!), and some at the new house with dripping milk jugs in them and the whole lot is already wondering when the heck they're ever going to be planted properly. I don't have an answer for that. All I know is that I can take at least 25% more of the plants from my yard and no one will ever notice.

Now my big problem is that I have run out of pots to put things in. Which is even worse. Because now I want to go and figure out a way to plant everything so I can get the pots back so I can go get more plants.

One might argue that I have lost my perspective on the whole effort vs. money thing.

SO. For those of you who are curious, this is the grande liste:

Plants I Originally Planned To Take Because I Either Couldn't Replace Them Or Wasn't Sure Exactly What They Are To Replace Them:
Hemoercallis fulva - Ditch Lilies
About a dozen various peonies, some of them I have been moving for 10 years now and are nearly 50 years old
Mystery Penstemon. I think it's 'Sour Grapes' but I'm not sure
Mystery vintage crocosmia

Already Potted Plants I Took Because I Hadn't Gotten Around To Planting Them Yet:
Cornus kousa 'Wolf Eyes' - Wolf Eyes Chinese Dogwood
Cotoneaster Parneyi - Parney Cotoneaster
Sambucus nigra 'Aureomarginata' - Variegated Elderberry
Lavandula angustifolia - English Lavender
Mystery Groundcover Sedum

Plants I Am Taking Because Even Though They're Too Big, They're Either Phenomenally Expensive To Replace Or Hard To Find:
Hydrangea paniculata, Standard - Standard Trained Pee Gee Hydrangea
Phyllostachys aurea - Golden Bamboo (three half barrels)
Pyrus salicifolia 'Pendula' - Weeping Pear (one fifteen gallon pot)

Plants That Were Volunteers In Inopportune Spots That Needed To Be Moved Anyway:
Verbena bonariensis - Brazilian Verbena
Liatris spicata 'Kobold' -
Lychnis coronaria - Rose Campion

Plants I Added Because I Thought What The Heck, A Chunk Missing Won't Be Noticed:
Hemerocallis 'L'il Grapette' - L'il Grapette Daylilies
Iris 'Black As Night' - 'Black as Night' Iris
Iris pallida 'Variegata' - Dalmation Iris
Pennisetum alopecroides 'Hamlyn' - Hamlyn Dwarf Fountain Grass

Plants Too Big To Move That I Decided To Take Starts From:
Buddleia davidii 'Black Knight' - Black Knight Butterfly Bush
Buddleia davidii var. nanhoensis 'Nanho Blue' - Nanho Blue Butterfly Bush
Euphorbia characias wulfenii - Mediterranian Spurge
Sedum 'Matrona' - Matrona Sedum

Plants I Threw In Because Once I Started I Couldn't Stop:
Achemilla mollis - Lady's Mantle
Achillea millefolium 'Cerise Queen' - Cerise Queen Yarrow
Galium odoratum - Sweet Woodruff
Geranium macrorrhizum - Cranesbill
Viola labradorica - Labrador Violets
Mystery Astilbe

Plants I Fully Intend To Get (Or Get More Of, Or Get Starts From) As Soon As I Can Figure A Way To Get More Pots:
Buddleia davidii 'Harlequin' - Harlequin Butterfly Bush
Dicentra Spectabilis - Bleeding Hearts
Dicentra Spectabilis 'Gold Heart' - 'Gold Heart' Bleeding Hearts
Fothergilla gardenii - Dwarf Witchalder
Geranium phaeum - Mystery Variegated Hardy Geranium
Hydrangea macrophylla 'Nigra' - Black Stem Hydrangea
Hydrangea macrophylla 'Endless Summer' - Endless Summer Hydrangea
Hydrangea macrophylla 'Nikko Blue' - Nikko Blue Hydrangea
Hydrangea macrophylla - Mystery Hydrangea that I got as a start from a neighbor
Leucanthemum superbum - Daisies
Nepeta racemosa 'Little Titch' - Little Titch Catmint

And in the "I'm Going To Miss Them," department:

Plants I Wish I Could Bring But Would Leave Too Big Of A Hole In The Garden:
Callicarpa bodinieri 'Early Amethyst' - Early Amethyst Beautyberry
Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion' - Profusion Beautyberry
Hosta x 'Sum & Substance' - Sum and Substance Hosta
Viburnum opulus 'Sterile' - Eastern Snowball

Plants I Wish I Could Bring But Are So Large I'd Have To Do Major Excavation To Dig Them Up:
Styrax japonicus - Japanese Snowbell

Plants I Really Want To Bring But Just Don't Transplant Well, Especially In July
Echinacea purpurea 'Magnum' - Purple Coneflower
Rosa 'Abraham Darby' - Abraham Darby English Rose
Rosa 'Cecile Bruner' - Cecile Bruner Climbing Rose
Rosa 'Reine de Violette' - Reine de Violette English Rose
Rosa 'Zepherine Drouhin' - Zepherine Drouhin Climbing Rose
Rosa rugosa 'Hansa' - Hansa Moss Rose

Just for contrast, here's...

Plants I Am Inheriting At My New House:
Mystery pear
Mystery daylilies
Weigela florida 'Alexandra' - Wine & Roses Weigela
Various overgrown foundation shrubs that are getting the axe. Literally.

That's it.

So maybe it's not so crazy.

Anybody need a job watering potted plants?