Moving With Plants?

[BlueLotus]

I come from a family that is constantly moving every other year for one reason or another. Personally, I moved to California from the Midwest. We had three raspberry bush, a blueberry bush, a black berry bush, about ten pots of herbs, some flowers, a pepper plant, four tomato plant, and some indoor decoration plants that somehow survived the couple day move to California. I think that was the most plants that I've moved that they've survived.

I was just wondering what you're biggest move with plants was? Or do you tend to just keep the seeds and move? Any plants you regret leaving? I know that there were a couple for me. I wish I would have thought to take a branch of this peach tree that I loved from a house my mom rented. Also seeds from the columbine and foxglove flowers.

 

[Beth_B]

I have tended to move big when I move...so taking my California avocados to Colorado really was never an option.

My last move was a mere six miles, and I did bring my hostas and ferns with me to the current place.

 

[Owdboggy]

When we moved here I brought something in the region of three thousand plants with us, but then we were in the process of setting up a Nursery.

 

[marlingardener]

We moved about 50 miles from town to our farm, and I brought so many plants that the local rumor was that we were opening a nursery! One lady stopped and asked when we would be open, and I had to tell her the roses, perennials, shrubs and a few trees were all for our yard. She nearly cried, and I felt guilty.
I also brought seeds from some favorite annuals, and rooted cuttings of roses that were too large to move. Anything that would fit in a three gallon pot or smaller came with us.

 

[Becky]

When we moved here I brought something in the region of three thousand plants with us, but then we were in the process of setting up a Nursery.

Wow, that sure is a lot! Must have been pretty stressful!

 

[Owdboggy]

More stressful than you can imagine. We moved in October and the weather went cold and everything froze and stayed frozen until February. No chance to plant the plants and no shelter for them, we lost most of them and had to start building up the collection again.

 

[marlingardener]

Oh, that is awful! I know what it is like to lose a few beloved plants, but your loss was incredible! I admire your perseverance in building your collection again. So many people would have simply given up (thrown themselves down on the carpet and had a good cry!).
We were lucky in that we moved in March, during one of the wettest springs in Texas history. I had to empty catch trays rather than watering daily!
We too lost a few plants--a Golden Ball tree that I had raised from a seed, and a start from a beloved Brother Cadfael rose, among a few others. But our few losses don't compare to what you lost. So glad you are still gardening!

 

[Owdboggy]

A lot of the plants were grown from wild collected seed too, so really irreplaceable.
Never did start the Nursery though. I was too ill just after we moved to do it.
No choice about carrying on. We moved here so that we could grow things, so that's what we did.

 

[Becky]

Gosh, that must have been a terrible experience! Glad to hear it didn't put you off growing things though

 

[kgord]

HMM I have moved several times, and am contemplating another one. I think I have moved with plants, but they were small hardy ones. They didn't present much of a problem with moving as I recollect. So this was something that worked out relatively well, however, if you had a large collection of plants I would imagine it might be more of a problem to do.

 

[Corzhens]

We were renting a house when we purchased this present house with a bank mortgage in 2001. We didn't have the heart to leave the cashew tree which was almost 2 years old. Our neighbor there took pains in "balling" the cashew so we could bring it to our new home. We even rented a pickup just for that because the tree was quite big already. We planted it on the sidewalk fronting our house. It was okay for some weeks until the neighbor's jeep hit the tree by accident. The roots may have been damaged which caused its death.

 

[claudine]

We moved twice during the last two years and of course I took all our plants with us, because I love them I can't imagine leaving them.
We have more than 30 plants and some of them are really big.

 

[digger]

We've only moved once from an apartment to this house which is, by the way, a foreclosed or pre-owned property. We only had about 10 potted plants from our old place and we brought all of them when we moved to this house. No sweat! It's quite normal to be attached to plants and we're all sentimental about our old plants which are all flowering plants. They are out trophies, it wasn't easy at all growing them amidst the storms and hot weather spells.

 

[rz3300]

I consider myself pretty lucky to be able to say that I really have not had much of an issue here. That said though, I did have an experience where we were driving back from Minnesota and we got stopped while the cops were checking for fireworks, and we had these plants in the trunk and my mother was worried they would be illegal or something. Nothing happened, but I always wondered why she was so worried.