Hey Rouge - White Gold dicentra is available over here, finally - will be buying.

Excellent Campanula.

I look forward to our two giving us a show this spring.

Ah yes, Hollies. One of my favourite gardens, the Old Vicarage, has an entire garden area devoted to hollies. Like many, I initially shook my head in bewilderment...but actually, maintaining a collection is the very best way of appreciating the astonishing diversity within a single genus. The devil really is in the detail...and, as an owner of a tiny pocket wood, I have no problem agreeing with the old carol: The Holly and The Ivy - 'of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown'

eta - I also remember the horrid feeling of grubbing about underneath an ancient holly - pain and grief while being stabbed by seemingly immortal holly leaves. I tend to favour the non-prickly varieties.

yep, that's true, the dead leaves are more prickly than the live ones, it seems

I can admit to having a couple of all consuming plant passions over my gardening career. The first was hardy euphorbias. Don't remember what species I started out with but the plant appealed and the acquisition bug hit hard!! At one count I had some 24 different species and hybrids.......by no means anywhere near 'collector' status for this amazing genus but there are only so many one can fit into a smallish urban garden :-) But then they started spreading and self seeding a bit too robustly so I removed the worst offenders. And mother nature removed a few of the more tender varieties as well. I still love euphorbs but restrain myself to a couple of docile hybrids.

The second was clematis. And they are addicting to so many gardeners!! But rather than the large flowered hybrids most favor, I prefer the less common species. But my once large collection was left behind at a previous residence. I still have a passion for clems but very little space now to grow, so resort to a just a few containers. Beardless species iris was another passion and at one time or another I have grown as many species or their hybrids as I could find.

I have only just come to the recent realization that I am developing a similar passion for saxifrages, as I seem to have amassed the start of a decent collection. Again, it is the diversity and attraction of the genus that appeals so much. And that there is a nearby collectors nursery that has a huge selection doesn't hurt much either :-) The good news is these little guys and my reduced amount of available planting real estate seem made for reach other :-)

yes,yes saxifrages - I so agree - a match made in heaven for the spatially challenged gardener.

And absolutely up there with nerdy status too.

I trust you are a member of the Scottish Rock Gardening Forum?

"I trust you are a member of the Scottish Rock Gardening Forum?"

No. Should I be? I really know very little about the genus, only that the plants appeal to me greatly and I seem to have gathered a number of different ones without realizing it. I may have to seek out a good monograph, if you know of one.

I should also add that I seldom need additional encouragement or enabling to pursue these plant addictions :-) A specialty forum could get me into some serious trouble.............

I am have several of the different turkscap and I am looking for more. Three types of Beauty bushes. I had, once upon a time, 70 types of opuntia and 50 types of aloes but that is for a different forum. The aloes are potted plants mostly and I have let some die because they keep getting bigger and my ability to protect them is limited. I am keeping my favorites and more cold hardy ones. I need to stop yakking and go out and cover them. That arctic blast's ETA is in an hour. I need to do a bunch of readying chores like turn the heat lamp on in the pump house. drain the tanks measuring gauge cover plANTS, mulch, turn on heat tape...Bye

arctic blast!

Have spent all day in PJs.

Hey GG, you should take a look at SRGC (and NARGS for that matter) - the bulbs section is terrific but there are some truly knowledgeable gardeners who post on the forum.

Christopher Grey-Wilson has written a lot on various monographs - alpines for sure (and poppies) but also editored the WfW Harding monograph on saxifrages.

I normally garden in my PJ's all year long but I am in my multiple layers and it has not even frozen yet. I am a half tender perennial, a wussy that bears it the grumpy way..My son is still running around in barefeet and swim shorts helping me cover pipes, driving me crazy.

I am developing a silphium craze and moving different varieties out into my field as they root around the different mother plants. I am trying to rap my mind around S. albiflorum growing conditions. Right now, I seem to be slowly torturing them. I keep waiting for that "sleep" period to end. If I could , I would develop a krameria or ratany craze but I can not find the a source for the different seeds for rattany. Another urge is I would LIKE to develop is a bunch of different ipomopsis from the western states. Daleas (not dalias) are another plant that I have many varieties of and I always want more. Hard to germinate and get started. I am still kicking myself for not picking a cutting off that very white dalea dark purple blooming one I saw growing west of Artesia New Mexico last year. I had 2 weeks of traveling in a car ahead of me and no perlite or rooting hormone in the car. Damn, next trip I take, I am traveling with cuttings materials. That should drive my sister crazy along with the paper bag with opuntia pads that got her GOOD while she was sitting in the back seat. LOL..

For me it's clematis and any of the western Agastaches I can get to grow here (which isn't many, though I've tried a bunch.) Penstemons have been a favorite since I saw my first one as a teenager, though many don't like my long winters and wet springs.

A lot of my loves are woody Genera. Rhododendrons, both deciduous and evergreen, are a delight thanks to childhood visits to the Holden Arboretum, but my winters here limit my choices. I've still managed to acquire a couple dozen types. I really like hydrangeas, and both paniculata and arborescens grow well here. Dogwoods are another long-term love, but the voles limit my ability to grow them; I've pulled up several failing and virtually rootless trees and shrubs with little effort. Viburnums hardy enough to survive my extended cold and occasional zone 4 temperatures are also popular here with blooms, berries, and gorgeous fall color. I've had as many as 10 types here at one point, though one succumbed to cold and another was a disappointment and was removed.

It's probably good I live in a spot with limitations on what I can grow or the garden would continue to grow in extent.

Wantonamara good luck with the ipomopsis, they're such an interesting group and you rarely see them grown. The reds are cool enough, but the blueish and white species really seem like something worth searching out.

I have nothing else to add to this conversation. I've begun collecting geraniums (pelargoniums... not even the perennial kinds) and caladiums, and am pretty sure this would only impress my grandmother.

How can I forget! I have acquired a hankering for xeric western amsonias. I have received seed of three new varieties of the them from someone on this forum.. They are definitely getting planted in a month or so. I also have a friend collecting Amsonia longiflora seed for me from a wild population in Gillespie county, Texas. In the past year I have planted out 10 plants of them and given them to others who grow xeric plants also. I have 25 more somewhat old seed of that variety. That is indigenous to my area but uncommon. It is a slow grower. I also discovered that they grow from cuttings. You never see these in the trade or in catalogues . Well, Allpains has some of the Xeric varieties but not the longiflora .

Well, I think my old friends are the Aroids, which I first became obsessed with when a stranger recommended that I buy sauromatum venosum from the Home Depot bulb section a few Springs ago, when I was all wide-eyed and innocent (a card which I still play, so don't say otherwise!). Long story short, multitudes of arisaemas, amomorphophalluses, caladiums, colocasias, alocasias, etc., planted in the garden and in pots, with endless hours fantasizing and lusting over them.

As most of these are annuals which I need to overwinter, for this thread will stick to the ones that are perennial. Bought all kinds of varieties which I planted all over the garden - wherever I could find any kind of space to throw my precious. The past year (2017) was supposed to be the height of all my obsession for the past few years coming together and seeing all these amazing varieties do their thing through the season.

Instead, turned out to be a non-starter. In the strange gardening year that was, so many other things in the garden went crazy, but not the arisaemas - in fact, much the reverse. Many didn't show at all. I thought it was only me, but the main nursery I go to for my fix said the same thing.

I live in hope for 2018. I also have this strange thought that I might move from here and never experience the full 'show'. Somebody else is going to see it, with these masses of strange plants popping up all over - and be not be anywhere as enthused as I - and dig them all up!