No, but I sure wish I had! I left wonderful perennial beds in my old house, scared off by intimidating language in the sale contract ("ALL plants and shrubs are to remain - NOTHING is to be removed") and intimidating buyers who had already put us through the wringer and who, I was quite sure, wouldn't hesitate to sue us if they found a freshly dug hole in the perennial bed!! I have anguished over the favorites I left behind ever since; it's especially hard every time I drive by the old place and see weeds overrunning the beds everywhere. I would thing dividing and giving to friends is a GREAT idea! Everyone comes out ahead!!

Can you pot up and give plants to your friends before you put your house on the market thus avoiding ctlady's experience? Seems like if you have them in black nursery pots or the plants aren't there when the buyer looks at the property you shouldn't have any trouble. I would just take your prized plants, those with some sentimental value or ones that are hard to find. No sense moving 'common ones' that you can pick up at a swap or find readily at the box stores.

There was an interesting thread a while ago on the perennials forum on the 'problems of moving'. May be some ideas there to avoid the pitfalls?

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: So you need to sell your garden ? (and, oh yeah, the house too)

I did this, quite a long time ago. It was my first garden, small but full of much-loved perennials. We had to move across country for a year, then back to the East Coast but not to the same city. We owned three houses in one year...I digress. A gardening friend and I dug up all my perennials and divided them in half. She took one half to her new house, where she was just starting her garden. We re-planted the other half in the same place at my house. I was actually doing the new owners a favor. You'd never know anything was "missing".

The year passed and we moved back--but to the Boston area, nowhere near where I had been living. I did visit my friend several times and saw how well "my" plants were growing. I was happy for her but it proved impractical at that time to re-dig everything, divide in half again, re-plant half at her house and move my half to Boston. That was the plan when I thought I'd be living a lot closer to house #1 and could do it gradually.

It could certainly have been done but with babies, animals, a new house...I wasn't motivated.

My SIL, knowing how crazy about my garden I am, cut out a newspaper article for me a month or so ago in England. A woman near Bath dug up her entire garden in the London area and moved it, perennials, shrubs and all. It was just on tour and she got an award. Needless to say, she had lots of money.

Saypoint, you have such a lovely garden. I feel so badly that you have to move again but you can indeed do this if you have the time and energy. Just do it BEFORE the house is sold. Good wishes to you.

During the last two months I was a constant recipient of hostas, astilbes and other shade loving plants my friend had a fields of.
He was selling his huge 2.8 acres shady park and moving to a 0.25 acres postage stamp.
Idea was to let me have what I want AND to have something for him to start landscape in a new place.
As it turned out, his new place is in a full sun, with no shade whatsoever (new development) and most of the 'to be his' plants are not of use there.
However, I have some plants that I either can't provide the right growing conditions (lack of sun) in my own garden and they are not performing to the full capacity or just have too many (peonies). Now those plants will find a better home and I feel very good about them and my friend.
Jo, my point is, by giving your plants away you may or may not want to have them back for whatever reason, be it different zone or sun/shade exposure or anything else in your new location or just for economical/conviniency reasons, but you definitely could count on a FRIENDS to help you to create a new garden whenever it be.
Good luck.

I'm not sure you'd need to actually pot them up, but you could simply have a clause in the contract -- much as you would if you were taking a chandelier or something else that would otherwise be expected to stay -- that you reserved the right to divide some of the plants. Otherwise, I agree that if people see the house with big, full daylilies and when they do the walk-through, the plants are half the size of what they saw, they MIGHT complain (at least I know our buyers would have -- but they were jerks in every respect!) (In their defense, they had seen, apparently, at least one home where the former owners had removed every tree and shrub on the lot -- even the brick patio had been taken up and was bare dirt!)

I would also say that even if I HAD taken more of the plants (and I did manage to sneak out a few), it was awfully hard to find the time to actually plant them, what with unpacking and settling people and pets. I ended up sticking the few I had just randomly into ill-prepared beds, and moving them the next year into proper digs (so to speak :)

But I DO miss my Dusky Challenger iris!!! :(

Phooey. I would have taken out the Dusky Challenger iris, gone to the garden center and found some nice iris to plop into the hole in its place. Especially if the Dusky wasn't in bloom when Mr. and Mrs. Jerk did their walkthrough. They'd never know. lol

Saypoint,
I live in my first and only home I've ever owned, so I haven't experienced your dilemma. I like the idea of having your friends be Plant Stewards(TM) for your treasured perennials while you get settled. I wonder, however, whether you might also ship some of your plants ahead to your new home as you travel to it? If they are cut back or dormant and well packaged, wouldn't they make it intact?

When I divide a full-size daylily, Siberian iris, hosta etc., if I just chop it in half, it is not even noticeable when I replant the division. In fact, the plant does better divided into fourths. Dividing and refreshing the soil is good for the majority of perennials, tho not all.

As for putting it in the contract, people seem to get really ornery about these things. We've all read stories here and I had a neighbor who ended up in WWIII with a buyer who turned ugly about this very issue. I'd vote for dividing in silence before selling, if at all possible.

My gardens have some really large clumps of perennials, many of them in need of division anyway. I was thinking of dividing and giving away plants as soon as the weather cools. I'm anticipating putting the house on the market soon, but who knows how long it might take to sell? Could be mid-winter, so I'd have to plan in advance.

We've moved several times, and my experience has been that it takes several months at least to unpack, find all of my stuff, put it away, and fix all of the little annoying things at the new house that don't function well for us, like fence for dogs, etc. Planting will have to wait.

When we first moved out of state a few years back, my mother packaged up and sent bare-root divisions of a lot of plants, some of them originally from my former garden. I also brought home bags of divisions from her garden on a visit home, but she'll be moving with us if we go, so that won't happen this time.

Maybe I'm better off starting from scratch, anyway. And there's always plant swaps and exchanges.

If you were my friend I would not let you leave your whole garden behind. :-) I would definitely offer to come over and help you divide and take your plants home to babysit until you could use them again.

It might seem like a little more trouble, but if you haven't put the house on the market yet, and it is fall which is the perfect time to divide and move, I would get busy. Send out invitations to a dividing/moving party. Provide a cookout and I think you could have a fun time and preserve your plants for a future swap with your own plants..lol.

Plant costs are very very high right now, I would hate to think of having to replace everything I bought in the past 5 years even. If you go to swaps, yes you will get plants, but are you going to find what you are looking for? Doubtful, you will find anyone offering you just the plants that you left behind.

If none of your friends are gardeners, you could post online to host a give away at your house with the understanding that you would love to have the plants or divisions back when you are ready for them.

You could actually have all the plants in your garden all dug up divided and in new homes, like a deposit in a bank, before you even put your house on the market, so you can concentrate on moving and settling in without having to think of that too.

:-)

Jo, I'm sorry to hear your moving news...not only sorry you'll be leaving your gardens behind but also because I've enjoyed your posts these past few years and feel we are "almost" neighbors. I hope the move will be a positive one for you and your family. Is the new location in a similar climate as CT...same zone, etc.?

I can also relate to having buyers who wouldn't allow perennial divisions. We had the same situation when we left our home/gardens in NH. I had wanted to divide just one daylily so I could take a piece of my old garden to start the new...buyers wouldn't allow me to divide the daylily so I left with nothing. I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now.

Jo, your plan sounds good - I wish I'd thought of it last time I moved. If you run out of gardening friends, I'm sure we'd all be glad to babysit some plants for you.

It looks like back to SW VA where we lived before, zone 6. Maybe a fall digging party is in order. We haven't listed yet, so nothing would be missed.

Jo, are you leaving New England? What a shame it would be to lose you from this forum. I'm sorry you have to move again.

I think the ideal thing to do would be to have the house on the market in the winter when everything is dormant! Then no one would know if anything was missing. A thick cover of snow would be helpful...

Seriously though, maybe you could make a list of the plants that are your absolute favorites, rare, or have special value. Dig those and find them babysitters or bring them somehow. The other things that you like a lot you could distribute to friends somehow. But really think about which ones you would regret to leave behind, there's nothing worse than always wishing you had done something differently!

I'm sorry you're having to move after only four years. You have done such a beautiful job with your place. Have you at least had time to enjoy the new hardscaping, I hope?

I think a dividing party is an excellent idea. I would keep one or two divisions to bring with me and just pot them up in decent sized pots so if you don't get to planting them right away, no big deal. The rest you can dole out to whatever friends want to dig them up.

Happy house hunting, and you will surely be missed around this forum if/when you move to, what, Mid-Atlantic or something?

Jo: Having left a four year garden AND a different 18 year garden, I have some experience in this regard.

The first move I took things which ended up dying in pots because I didn't have time nor the right spot to put them in. So, I started over.

The second time I left I only potted things up that I knew I couldn't replace (trials, heirlooms, etc.). They got sunk, pots and all, in a nursery garden at a friend's home who thankfully had sun and shade. I've not pulled one of those plants, yet but I get to visit them whenever I like. One of these days and it's been five years and two since I started "the park."

I've learned that gardens are a lot like the houses we leave -- each has its own personality and was put in for the specific conditions that nature gives us. We plant for a particular view from a window, or a "look" coming around a corner, or because a certain container looks just right in a certain spot.

In the end, though, it's not the plants. It's the work, the thought, the memories, and the triumphs and losses that matter. Plants is plants is plants is plants. There will always be more.

It has been an absolute trip to start all over again this time around. I know what I like, ignore most gardening "rules" except for hardscape first, do things I would've been nervous about doing, and yank when something doesn't work. It's a freeing experience and I DON'T have to worry about that pot ghetto that I so carefully dug and divided.

Virginia is beautiful -- the one place other than New England that would be a tempting spot to live. We'll miss you if it happens, but we (and New England plants) will only be a click away!

Sorry for the length of this post but I hope it's helpful and will let you know that it's sad to leave things behind, but pretty darn great to start "clean."

Martie

Martie, I have thought of that aspect. Starting over (again, this will be our fifth home in 13 yrs. of marriage) can be fun. I get to leave behind my mistakes, and try again, this time having more experience and knowledge than I did last time. It will also give me an opportunity to try something completely different if I want to.

When we sold our home in MA (it had been my parents) to build in NH I had the realtor put in the PS agreement that I would be taking several peonies, infact we had an agreement that I could move them in late Sept. Mrs. Lady wasn't happy about it but agreed to it. She was very sweet the day I arrived to move them.
When we moved to FL (peonies don't grow here) I split them and gave them to cousins and friends, with the promise that if we ever moved north, we would divide them and I could have the divisions.
I hope what ever you do you will be happy in your new home.
Marion

Yes, startig over does sound good in some ways - we learn so much from each garden we create. I'm still telling people that I moved out of my old house 15 years ago because it was the only way I could deal with the speedwell I'd planted in the garden there.

We will certainly miss you on the NE forum!

I do know someone who recently moved many of his plants before he moved and was able to use (I don't know the details of the agreement) space at a nursery in his new community where there was water and cover when necessary. After the move and hardscape was installed he moved his plants to their final home. I don't know if once I was over the initial shock of leaving my plants behind if I would go to any great effort but I would want my friends to adopt some of my babies I think I would not miss them as much if I knew they were being well cared for. What ever you choose I envy you for starting a new chapter. Best of luck kt

Jo, I've never moved a garden so I don't have any first hand experience. Moving isn't my thing so I don't envy you with all the constant upheaval. My husband claims nobody would buy our house anyway because of the gardens...lol. Since this issue seems to come up on the forums occasionally I've done some thinking about it and have basically come to the conclusion that I wouldn't want to be bothered moving potted plants and having to deal with them in addition to all the other "stuff". Maybe I'd feel differently if I was faced with the issue but it would depend on the circumstances. As Martie said, every house and every property is different. I like your idea of giving divisions to your friends. Especially since it seems that in many cases the new owners of garden homes tend to let everything go after they move in despite fighting over the plants before closing.

Will your new home have the same proximity to the ocean? That is one prime spot you have now. It should sell quick, no?

Sue

Hi Sue,

We'll likely be in the mountains if things go as I expect. We lived in that area for two years before returning to CT four years ago. The Blue Ridge Mountains are lovely, and the climate is very similar to where I am now, maybe just a bit milder. It's not as snooty as parts of CT can be, but on the other hand, the cultural/shopping opportunities are fewer in that rural area. I was on a first name basis with the UPS and FedEx guys when I was there before. I'm told the area has grown a lot since I was there, however.

Yes, my area here in CT is very desirable, and I hope it would sell quickly, but it depends on finding the right buyer. The house is an antique, and not everyone is interested in the upkeep, though you can't beat it for character.

I miss the crabapple tree at my old home that I moved from 10 years ago. My husband made a great jelly. Other than that, I enjoyed starting over. It takes awhile, but each house and property has its own personality. The idea of sharing plants with friends is a good idea.

One of my prized possessions is a cutting from a boxwood at our ancestoral home in Virginia. It was just the smallest twig four years ago. Now it is starting to look like a boxwood. Something like that I would probably move.