About Me
My Photo
Annie in Austin
Welcome! As "Annie in Austin" I blog about gardening in Austin, TX with occasional looks back at our former gardens in Illinois. My husband Philo & I also make videos - some use garden images as background for my original songs, some capture Austin events & sometimes we share videos of birds in our garden. Come talk about gardens, movies, music, genealogy and Austin at the Transplantable Rose and listen to my original songs on YouTube. For an overview read Three Gardens, Twenty Years. Unless noted, these words and photos are my copyrighted work.
View my complete profile

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Passalong Plants - Austin Style

This post, "Passalong Plants - Austin Style" is another entry in my Passalong Plant series, which began with A Passalong Plant From My Father, and includes Passalong Plants~The Book, and Passalong Plants ~ The Daylilies. The following photos were taken at various times of the year - they're not actually all in bloom at one time! Written by Annie in Austin at the Transplantable Rose.

In order to play the Passalong plant game, you need plants that can be shared through seedlings, cuttings, offsets or division, and they have to be established enough to divide. You also have to somehow bump into other gardeners who like the passalong idea! Some of us are lucky enough to have friends and family who pass plants along, but there are other ways.

1] Conversations with neighbors may unveil someone who has a conventionally boring front yard with the interesting stuff behind the fence. They may be glad to have a fellow gardener to share with when plants get crowded.

2] If you can’t stop talking about flowers, your family and friends will label you as "the gardener" (or possibly as "the garden nut") and immediately think of you at plant-thinning and plant-rescue time.

3] Many members of gardening organizations like the Hemerocallis and Iris societies are dedicated traders.

4] The regional boards of forums like GardenWeb [including the very active Texas group] may clue you in to a plant swap in your town, where you can have fun and meet other plant people.
Up in the Cedar Park/Leander area northwest of Austin, a group of women met through a swap group... Diva Mindy and I had the chance to meet them last summer when they explored the idea of forming their own cooperative garden group - kind of like our Divas of the Dirt.

5] Please share those great stories about how you found your passalong plants!


As a neighbor at two Austin addresses, as a friend, as an Austin Garden Blogger and as one of the Divas of the Dirt, I’ve given plants and received them. Having a blog now lets me acknowledge many of
the kind Texas people who added interesting plants to my collection since 1999 - I hope they found my Passalongs interesting, too.


Sherry and I met when our sons became friends. We both liked to garden, so when Sherry was overwhelmed with starter shrubs and seedlings, she shared some surplus plants from her mother's garden. I recognized seedling Indian hawthorns, but what was the foot-tall mystery plant with the long leaves? Eight years and one move later - the long leaves grow on our 11-foot tall Loquat tree in the photo above.

My neighbor Gail passed along some kind of an Equisetum. This plant has lots of nicknames, including Horsetail Rush and sometimes Scouring Rush because it has so much silica that pioneers used it to clean pots.

My Horsetail would probably love to live near a pond but has had to survive life on the windswept, sunbaked deck at the previous house and then endure the indignity of being plunked next to the BBQ grill to hide the tank.


It's staying in that patio container - although I enjoy the sculptural qualities of this native, Equisetum can be very aggressive where it's too happy.


Diane gave me Salvia leucantha and Salvia greggii for our first Austin garden - perhaps they still bloom there. Three years ago she gave me a seedling from her loquat tree (yes! I have two!) and the nice large-leaved sedum that's seen above at left in the hypertufa container. Diane also gave me a start of the gently spreading patch of the Texas wood ferns that grow in the secret garden, seen here last summer with Indigofera from my friend Carole.

Carole's has a small stand of Indigofera in her garden and she was kind enough to give me a start a while ago. One piece took root and it bloomed this spring. I don't know the species name - but sometimes it's called Pink False Indigo.

Carole also shared some Shasta daisies with me while I still gardened on the deck at the other Austin house. They grew and bloomed in that container for several years then really took off once planted in the ground here. The Shasta daisies have already been passed along to other people and so have Carole’s passalong Lambs Ears and the wacky succulent called Mother of Thousands - it reached 5-feet tall in the breakfast room window last winter and bloomed for months.


Macky passed along the bridal veil type plant above- possibly Tradescantia geniculata, which now grows in a small woodland garden - making tiny white flowers for months on end. She also gave me the young Barbados cherries seen above, some beautiful clear red Salvia greggii, and garlic chives. Her passalong Barbados cherry plants have made it through a couple of winters - the larger plant I bought at a local nursery bailed at the first freeze.

My friend Sue had Salvia leucantha to share, and it’s growing more strongly than the plants of the same salvia from a nursery. The flowers look good in person but I can't seem to photograph them.

Christi had a couple of extra boxwoods - they stayed small while in containers at the other house, but are growing since they were planted in the ground here.

You’ve seen Ellen’s wonderful purple iris earlier this spring. She also gave me unusual plants from her garden-happy mother-in-law - a small Bauhinia, a blue butterfly flower, Mexican honeysuckle [all too small to bloom yet] and this weeping Buddleja in the Secret Garden. Ellen gave the original alligator plant to Carole, so they're both responsible for this mid-winter display in my breakfast room.

Susan, Sue and Carole all gave me bulbine, over and over! If the sixth try is the charm, it may finally live in the new front border.

Jane gave me a cutting from her red plumeria a few years ago - it took awhile to bloom, but is now a small tree in a large container, brought into the garage over winter.

In summer 2006, Sandy gave me fine bladed monkey grass and some cuttings of Aucuba japonica to root. The Aucuba is small but alive and the monkey grass looks good in front of the bench in the secret garden.

Passalong plants from garden bloggers grow here, too, and their presence is doubly sweet – because it means that we writers met in person – something that didn’t seem likely two years ago.

After conversations on her Zanthan Garden site, MSS and I met for the first time in the spring of 2006 when she gave me bluebonnet seedlings. That fall she shared some Oxblood lilies, and in fall 2007 shared more with all of us Divas of the Dirt. If they multiply we can pass them along to other gardeners, advancing the mission of MSS to keep this plant an emblem of Austin.

Pam from Digging is a wonderfully generous gardener, offering starts from her beautiful 'Amethyst Flame' iris. She also passed along a start of Heartleaf skullcap, a huge pot of Agapanthus, (Pam - they make great leaves but never bloom... what am I doing wrong??), a start of Anisacanthus which is starting to look happy in the new front bed, a Mexican oregano plant that grows in the Pink Entrance Garden and a stripey aloe.

Pam also gave me a start of her famous 'Best of Friends' daylily. This photo is from last summer - no sign of blooms yet this year.

In spring 2007 I finally met former garden blogger/now Mommy Blogger Martha – Martha gave me crinums and crocosmia which are growing but haven't bloomed. I'll have to wait to see what those flowers will look like, but other passalongs from Martha bloomed last year. Don't these beautiful burgundy-leaved cannas look good with the tall salvias? Martha also gave me roots of the canna below, which was so tall that a few volunteer Blue Pea Vines used it as a green trellis!


Looking back, it seems likely that the trees, shrubs, perennials, ornamental grasses, tropical plants, bulbs and groundcovers I passed along back in Illinois could fill an entire garden. Once moved to Texas it took years before I could share daylilies, Carole's Shasta daisies, Malva zebrina seedlings, 'Bengal Tiger' and 'City of Portland' Cannas, 'Telstar' dianthus, Lambs ears, Larkspur seedlings, Purple oxalis, 'Labuffarosea' Rainlilies, white iris, 'Amethyst Flame' iris or this Hedychium coronaria/Ginger lily. In recent months I've sent off a climbing rose, a couple of mini-roses, Purple coneflowers, 'Nuevo Leon' salvia, and Stapelia/carrion flower in addition to divisions of the fragrant orange iris seen at the beginning of this post.

Other gardeners are such generous people that it's very hard to follow my grandmother's rule and never say "Thank you" when someone gives me a plant. Maybe the best way for me to say how much I appreciate all of these wonderful people without actually saying it would be to just keep playing the passalong game, spreading the leafy love around.


This post, "Passalong Plants - Austin Style" is another entry in my Passalong Plant series by Annie in Austin for the Transplantable Rose.

36 comments:

  1. Great Post, Annie: I am newly swooning over the deep colored foliage of canna- have you seen the striped ones? I'm holding off until next year with all my gardening will power(which so far has proven to be quite weak).

    I think it especially nice you've met fellow bloggers and have so many gardening friends. I am limited in this way for sure.

    Just this morning as I was working in the garden I was thinking about how many of my beloved plants are from one of my neighbors who calls me very regularly to come dig or clip something else out of her garden. I could easily dedicate an entire post to what she alone has passed along to me. I cherish each and every one- and I just love it when I can share from my garden. The whole idea of what started in my garden flourishing in another garden is sort of cathartic and energizing. I like everything about "Spreading the leafy love".
    Meems @Hoe&Shovel

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have such a great collection of passalongs! It's so nice to have plants with a history! Interesting that the passalongs seem sturdier or healthier than the store bought...maybe they're just happier plants going from one loved garden to another?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Passalongs are a fun way to share one's garden with a friend. I have so many passalongs in my own garden that I'm not sure I could remember who all has given me what, including a number from Cercis-Circus. (Do you keep a list?)

    Regarding that agapanthus, I'm pretty sure I mentioned that I wasn't getting a lot of blooms--didn't I? I've read that agapanthus wants to be crowded to bloom, so maybe it just needs a little more time. One other note: when I did get flowers, they were a gorgeous deep blue, but they didn't always open all the way. A difficult plant. You can see now why I gave it away, right? ;-)

    Still, if anyone can get it to bloom, you can, Annie. You've got those old Southern classics in the palm of your hand, after all, even though they're often said not to grow here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My grandmother taught my sisters and myself long ago about not saying thank you for passalongs...but we solve the problem by saying "I can't wait to get home and get this in the ground!" We've been using this phrase for so long that one of my sisters once absentmindedly said it when handed a goodie bag of leftovers after a Thanksgiving meal!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Annie,

    A lovely tribute to the friends and the plants they pass along to us.

    I got many of my best plants from my friend, Wanda, who now lives in Anacortes, WA. I miss her, but I always think of her when I see the daylilies she hybridized, or the maidenhair fern she gave me.~~Dee

    ReplyDelete
  6. Pass Along plants are the true treasures of the garden. Not only do you have the plant but you have all the fond memories of the person, place and story to go along with each plant.

    Your post has really got my memories stirred up. I really should sit down and compile a list of all the pass along plants and all the stories that came along with them.

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a lovely post, Annie, and how gracious that remember all the friends who shared their gardens with you and can show your appreciation to everyone who visits your blog. I have many passalongs in my garden as well, but no where near the amount you have. Maybe we should host an Austin passalong blog and post about what we have to share with our blogging neighbors! Today I am giving away hose reels, in the same spirit!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Annie, How wonderful to walk around your garden and remember the friends and family members who gave you so many wonderful plants.

    And I know that there must be many gardeners both in Texas and Illinois and in Indiana who can walk about their garden or look in their sunroom and see many plants that came from your beautiful gardens and generous trowel.

    Carol, May Dreams Gardens

    ReplyDelete
  9. That canna won my heart at first glance too, Meems! I've had the yellow striped one called Praetoria or Bengal Tiger for years - it's in 4 different places. And there's a shorter coral-blooming canna called 'City of Portland' that I brought here from my old IL garden.

    I've been very lucky to meet gardeners both in IL and in Austin - one of the hardest parts about moving was leaving plants in IL that came from special people. I'm glad you liked that "Spreading the leafy love" idea!

    That's one reason I wanted to make this post, Leslie - people have been so sweet! If a plant has been a passalong for a few generations maybe they've been naturally selected for the area?

    Getting a passalong plant is one of the things I usually write down, Pam, even though my tracking of bloom times and weather is spotty. But I don't write down all the ones I give away.

    That wasn't a complaint about the Agapanthus - the leaves alone make it worth growing - but I wondered if there was a trick to make them bloom. It kills me to read how common and overused and tiresome Agapanthus are considered in California gardens!

    Thanks for coming and commenting Anonymous - that's a great answer and I might borrow it!

    Hello Dee of Red Dirt Ramblings - seeing the plants does bring the person to mind and maybe that means someone will think fondly of me someday, too! I remember you blogging about Wanda - do you ever get to see her since she moved to WA?

    Lisa at Greenbow- they're not always the fanciest flowers but they have emotional impact!
    I would feel honored if you make a passalong post, too.

    A passalong blog might be useful when we're in dividing and planting season, Diana Hose reels! Now that's an unusual passalong!

    Carol, your comment makes me happy - partly because you also love passalong plants, and partly because that means the Stapelia is hanging in up there!

    Thanks everyone!

    Annie

    ReplyDelete
  10. Interesting that you chose to post about this now. Cleaning up the garden for summer, I was just noticing how many plants I have that are passalongs--almost all from the Austin gardenbloggers (since I don't know any gardeners outside this group).

    I'm sorry to admit that I've killed two things you've given me but at least the white ginger still seems to be thriving. I'm so looking forward to when it blooms--it will always remind me of you.

    ReplyDelete
  11. A really wonderful post Annie...I am now remembering with fondness garden friends who shared their enthusiasm, expertise and plants with a novice gardener many years ago. Thank you,
    Gail

    ReplyDelete
  12. Annie,
    You are so right, gardeners are such generous people. That's something I've always felt but it was proven beyond doubt with all the help we recently received. Your flowers are wonderful and I love the weeping buddleja I've never seen one before.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks for this lovely post. In my new stroll garden, I have decided that the long winding walk along the fence will be called "Memory Lane" and it will feature passalong plants. I intend to get nice flat rocks and paint the names of the people who gave them to me on them and place them near the plant, both so I can remember better who gave me what, but also so that when my friends come to visit they will see how I honor their gift and love.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Annie: Great to see you have such an encyclopedic knowledge of your passalongs! In the Caribbean we have a "culture of passalong" as of course until about 30 years ago we didn't have any commercial nurseries, so the only way to develop one's garden was to acquire plants/cuttings from one's friends and family. I also do "informal trading" eg with new friends I'll bring them some condiment etc they like from my travels and then ask them for some cuttings or offsets which of course they'll gladly provide. If people know you are building/moving into a new house they'll also offer plants/cuttings to help you get your new garden going.
    Ive grown some varieties of plants I normally would not have bought in the nursery, just because someone offered it to me, and now I just love those plants, and seek out new varieties of those.
    A partial list: From Diane in Antigua: aloe, hibiscus, succulents, yucca, agave, crotons which unfortunately succumbed to whitefly, from Mitzie crotons, ti leaf, shell ginger. From LaTasha aloe, ti leafs, coral hibiscus, cacti, From Mark In Sonoma roses, aloe, herbs, From Taly the non gardener in San Francisco, succulents, from Marion and Art in Anguilla: bougainvillea, succulents, bottlebrush From Kathy: coconut, palms, aloe, hibiscus, yucca, bougainvillea
    From Carla petrea volubilis, heliconia
    From my brother and sister various philodendrons
    From seeds collected from trees I see anywhere : palms, orchid tree, scrambled egg tree, flamboyant.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi Annie, your passalong have wonderful memories of the people and places from which they came. A written list would be a good idea, I wonder if I can remember the many passalongs that live here. A good project to work on, thanks for the idea!
    Frances

    ReplyDelete
  16. I'd have very little if not for the generosity of other gardeners. My garden club had one or two swaps a year, a group from work has another and I am very fortunate to have met Kerri through our blogs who filled my car with plants. Many of those passalongs are now big enough for me to be able to share with others which I find just as enjoyable as being on the receiving end.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Keep the Equisetum baking in a pot on the patio! We made the mistake of planting one in the moist soil at the edge of a pond. Within the year, it was coming up in the lawn 50 feet from the pond. It was utterly impossible to get rid of. Then we moved!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I really enjoyed your passalong post, Annie. It has made think of a way to repay a neighbor for his kind deed: with some hostas which beg to be divided. The gent changed my daughter's flat tire about a month ago while my husband and I were in Illinois. Aren't we blessed to have such wonderful neighbors? It's just another reason why I love it here in Florida.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I consider passalong plants to be the best kind. You get a free plant and a connection to a friend. I have many plants in my garden that were passed along by very generous gardeners. It was how my garden pretty much got started.

    Jan
    Always Growing

    ReplyDelete
  20. Annie, what a wonderful post. My first perennial garden would not have possible if not for the generosity of a little old lady who lived in the same neighborhood at the time. She passed along hostas, feverfew, johnny-jump-ups, phlox, and a number of other plants that formed the backbone of my first garden in the first home my ex and I owned. I was a stay-at-home mom of three little girls, and couldn't have afforded to buy perennials. I still have divisions of her hostas in my current garden three moves, a divorce, a remarriage, and over twenty years later. I lost track of her several years after the first move. She was elderly at the time I knew her, and I'm sure she's been gone a long time by now. To this day, every time I look at those hostas, I'm reminded of her and how her generous spirit lives on in my garden.

    ReplyDelete
  21. What a wonderful post, Annie! I love that you remember where everything came from... I think that I might remember the whole list, but only because I don't have nearly as many passalongs as you do.

    And I LOVE the suggestion from Anonymous about an alternate "thank you." I'm going to start using that, too.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I don't think I fully understood the true meaning of passalong plants until this year. They are so much more than just a way to fill a garden space economically, but a way to remember the special friends and family who shared with you.
    Obviously, you have many friends who will always remember your generosity.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Great post with warm fuzzies! This is a great way to thank everybody for their passalongs. Remember at Spring Fling when I said I had never heard of the rule that you don't thank the giver for the passalong? Turns out, my mom had heard of this rule, but she never passed it along to me! I don't know why, the only passalong plants in my garden are from hers (except for the grassy plant from Frances). I'm the one who's always giving plants away.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hi MSS - if anything I gave you survives, enjoy it. But once a plant is out of my hands I no longer worry about it! We can always try again ;-]

    Thanks, Gail - it's good to remember the ones who helped us along the way, and to follow their example.

    Your disaster was a chance for other Alabama people to spread the leafy love, Randy and Jamie!
    I'm pretty excited about this unusual buddleja! It's still small so I hope it lives. We're pretty sure the name is actually Buddleja Lindleyana. I doubt that it will get to the size of this one in the Plant Delights Catalog here in Austin, but in Houston they can be enormous.

    What a cool idea, Healing Magic Hands! Your stroll garden will be a very special place, full of plants, and art and sweet thoughts. I hope you get lots of visitors!

    Hi Nicole - your passalongs are pretty encyclopedic themselves! Your plants are a lot more exotic than mine, but I'll bet the warm feelings are similar no matter where we live. Coral hibiscus, bottlebrush and scrambled egg tree! What a list!

    Your garden is so established and so packed with goodies, Frances, that a list of your plants would have to be big, no matter whether they were passalongs or purchases. It surprises me you haven't already done it, since you seem so organized.

    You hit on one of the fun parts, Apple - getting to be the one who gives as well as receives! And what fun that memories of Kerri are now growing in your garden (and probably in CountryGirl's garden too, right?) In spite of Spring Fling, I'm still a little jealous that you two got to meet.

    I'd heard that some people moved after freeing the Equisetum, Karen! So it's not just a legend? We've seen it on pond tours, mostly in containers in the middle of moving water rather than on the shore, but I was quite surprised to see it traveling merrily around part of the Hartman Dinosaur Garden at Zilker Park. I hope it won't be the equivalent of letting the raptors loose at Jurassic Park ;-]

    I'm glad you liked it, Walk2write - and that you have a wonderful neighbor - bet he will like the hostas! I hope the newer neighbors in the Southern Illinois half of your two-state lifestyle will be just as sweet!

    That's how a couple of my past gardens were started too, Jan...and you're right about the connections being so important!

    Thank you Garden Girl - little old ladies were wonderful to me, too, giving me some of those exact same plants back in IL. How cool that you still have the plants even after you've moved and had so many lifestyle changes... moving to a different climate kept me from taking more than a handful with me.
    I'm close to being a little old lady myself and dabble in genealogy... have you checked your friends name on any of the free family history sites like RootsWeb? If someone has died they may turn up on the SSDI.

    I've been extremely lucky in meeting and knowing gardeners, Blackswamp Kim - remembering them is a pleasure.
    "I can't wait to get home and get this in the ground!" is genius as far as I'm concerned!

    When I was a kid, my parents made a point of telling us kids that certain plants came from my aunts or from my grandmother. My grandmother had died by the time I took divisions for my first garden, so I was familiar with the memorial aspect right from the start. I hope you have plants with special meanings too, Prairie Rose!

    Thank you, Mr. McGregor's Daughter - I think that was during Carol's talk, wasn't it? Maybe your mom didn't mention the rule because she didn't want to stifle your creativity?
    You're such a big plant collector that you probably have to give some away or you couldn't get in the yard!

    Thank you for the comments!

    Annie

    ReplyDelete
  25. I've always felt that gardens that tell stories are the best kind of garden - when you meander around th beds, each clump tells a little story that all really make up a meaningful life. When I was in graduate school, a research technician in our lab was adding a large deck onto her home - and had a bunch of bearded iris to give away, lots and lots of different colors - I planted them in my backyard Michigan garden where they lived for several years, but when I moved to Florida (where they wouldn't do well) - I took many of them to my mother's garden. When I moved up to South Carolina, my mother then brought pieces of those irses back to my garden. It's like having tiny pieces of people with you, all around, and blooming.

    Such a nice post.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Annie,
    You sure do have a lot of leafy love. Your garden looks beautiful. I love passalongs because there is always a story and a good memory that goes along with them.
    Enjoy.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Hi Annie! Thanks for the shout-out! I still love the Bengal Tiger you gave me, and you converted me to lambs' ears to boot!

    ReplyDelete
  28. "Spreading the leafy love around." I like that.

    How I would treasure a group of neighbors or friends to share with but being a fairly new resident in NC...not yet. Annie, I would take that Equisetum if I had something to give to you in return. But, you have it all! And I have little to offer. I'm working on it in my spur of the moment way :o) If I find a nice spot for something, IN it GOES! LOL!

    I'd love to dig up all the grass and make it a garden walk. That's my dream.

    Have fun with your passalongs. That way, your garden is full of fond thoughts of nice people...

    Mary

    ReplyDelete
  29. Thanks for the tip Annie. I'd never heard of rootsweb. I've checked out some of the geneology websites in the past but most were by subscription and I didn't want to spend the money. (I'd rather spend my money on plants!) Rootsweb looks like an interesting site. There are some other people I'd like to research too.

    And I'm close to being a little old lady myself. Well, old anyway, not so little at 5'8". But I am a grandma, little or not! My husband is 7 months younger than me but he still teases me since I passed the 1/2-century mark a few months before he did.

    ReplyDelete
  30. This is such an AWESOME post. Brings tears to my eyes when I think of all the folks who have shared with me. I will share only a few stories though. First Doris lives in Woodlawn and we toured each others gardens. She gave me a brugmansia, a very special plant. Next a lady I met on Freecycle when I asked for some shrubs. She said I could dig some Rose of Sharons then let me tour her garden. She shared pink ladies AND half of a red peony. Not a common thing to do amongst gardeners. And you all know Francis, she dug me many plants but especially the Matrona sedum which she had dug even before we arrived. I value all of my passalong plants because of the people. But not only passalong plants, plants that came from other gardens from cuttings. Do they count as passalong?

    ReplyDelete
  31. You are certainly surrounded with friends. The passalongs' best attribute is the memory it brings of the gardener's gift. The chives on my current post were given to me by a dear friend who started me on the path of plant addiction!

    ReplyDelete
  32. To passalong plants is such an interesting concept; you develop variety in your garden, there must always be a fond association of the plant with the person who gave it to you, in general it must stimulate bonding so much. Sadly we do not have such an arrangement here, but on an optimistic note; plants were given as a remembrance gift in a function recently, so times might just be changing for good...

    ReplyDelete
  33. I love the story of your mom bringing the iris you gave her back to your garden, Pam, so they can still tell her story in South Carolina. 'Tiny pieces of people with you, all around, and blooming' is exactly right.

    Thanks, Chigiy - the stories are important, aren't they? I wonder if being a garden blogger makes us more likely to demand stories with our plants? We want stories with everything!

    MarthaChick - there are more lambs' ears if you need them! And if you ever get the time to write about your garden again, please let me know so I don't miss a word!

    I was lucky, Mary - meeting one gardener as soon as I came to Texas who introduced me to other gardeners, many of whom became my friends.
    Only two Austin neighbors seemed interested in the passalong idea. Gail gave me that equisetum when we lived at the last house, and my very nice current neighbor across the street has offered to share agaves but I didn't have the space.

    Good luck with your garden walk dream!

    You're welcome, Garden Girl - RootsWeb can be useful. For my researches I needed census transcriptions so paid for the Ancestry subscription...ouch!

    Thank you so much, Tina in the Garden - I like your stories! Frances sounds like a one-woman Passalong Plant Foundation!
    At the beginning of this post I said "seedlings, cuttings, offsets or divisions", so your cuttings sure count! Some of mine, like the plumeria, were from cuttings.

    Memories of other gardeners are truly special, Layanee - and you've made me realize something else. If I were still in Illinois, many of the plants in that garden would be memories of people who are no longer alive...these Austin passalongs are from people who are still present.
    Chives are a great passalong!

    Passalongs do stimulate bonding, Green Thumb, but sometimes instead of variety, a few years of passing them around means everyone you know will have some of the exact same plant in their gardens!
    I hope your remembrance gift grows well for you.

    Thank you for all the comments,

    Annie

    ReplyDelete
  34. I love the sharing idea with plants to and I do share everything with anyone who wants some. I don't have any other friends in my area that are gardeners though, so usually I mail things to friends. I guess I am one of the few in CA that loves agapanthus. I have lots of them. They do like being crowded. I don't dig them and separate them like most plants. When I first got married and got into my first house my great aunt was the one who shared her whole garden of plants with me. She was always calling to say one plant or another needed to be thinned out or just plain dug out. I was in my car and over there in a flash. Those are all good memories for me. I believe that is what makes a wonderful garden in the first place. To have plants in it that were once loved by someone else. My aunt also always said not to say Thank You for the plants. I never did understand that...Especially when I was raised to say Please and Thank You. This was a great blog topic thanks for writing it(-:

    ReplyDelete
  35. Annie, this post begs to be sung--and there should be a rousing chorus for everyone to join in.

    ReplyDelete
  36. I love this post, Annie! It makes me think of my mum, and all the plants she shared with us when we started a garden after building a new house in Australia during the 3 & 1/2 years we lived there (our 3rd child, Kathy was born there in 1980). The way I bring her into my garden now is to grow some of the plants that she grew. Lovely memories :)
    I recently spent an afternoon with my gardening friend, Marie, and came home with quite a few wonderful new plants. I plan to reciprocate by potting up several for her.
    I love each and every passalong I have, because as Pam said, it's like planting tiny pieces of the people :)

    ReplyDelete

A comment from you is like chocolate - maybe I could live without it, but life is more fun with it. I'll try to answer. If someone else's comment piques your interest, please feel free to talk among yourselves.