Do you get emotionally attached to the plants in your garden ?

I’m very attached to two of my plants. My friends bought them as a birthday present and came and planted them for me as I’m not known for my green fingers.
The honeysuckle is not doing well and I'm gutted. They’re coming to see me next week, so I’m hoping there’s something that can be done 🤞

Funny about honeysuckle. We had one for years and years just growing pretty wild in the back next to our deck but last year it just disappeared. Perhaps there is a worldwide honeysuckle bug around ?

I have a dying honeysuckle too. I think it's the dry weather. Their common name is woodbine and they are happiest in semi shade winding around trees.

Yes nanna8 I get very attached to plants.
I've struggled to grow Daphne and at last I have a successful one with a strong scent.

Not so much plants, as trees. In our last house for 25 of the 30 years we lived there, the back garden was dominated by a huge hazel tree, the largest the tree surgeon had ever seen.

It was about 70 feet from the house, smack in the middle of the lawn. All our rooms looked out onto the back lawn and could see it in all its beauty. Then one day I noticed a crack in one of the trunks.

I called in the tree surgeon, who went round the six intertwined trunks. he said hazel was not a long lived trees and there was rot in all the trunks. The tree needed to come down. So it came down and I wept.

The tree surgeon was right, even though it had only started to show in one trunk, all trunks had the first signs of rot. I started to grow the tree up again from the stump and had got about 10 shoots about 10 feet high when we moved.

Not to the general garden plants, but in tubs I’ve 2 hydrangeas given to me by a good friend who died in ‘23 and 2 rhododendrons which I took as cuttings from my Dads garden after he died in ‘07. I’ve asked the DDs to take one of each (if they’d like to) when the time comes to sell my house. There’s also a variegated poplar given to DH by his best friend, when we first moved here in ‘93, but that can’t be moved. Several people have asked for cuttings, which seem to root and grow well.

The plant that means the most to me is Amicia zygomeris which came from The Manor at Hemingford Grey in 2018.

DD1 asked it’s name and misheard me thinking I said
‘I miss ya’ and laughed saying she wasn’t going anywhere.
She died six months later.

I’m always relieved and happy when ‘I miss ya’ reappears every spring.

This garden has had several incarnations since we moved here, when there was virtually nothing in it at all. The only thing I would miss, and which are getting priority watering in this current dry spell, would be my collection of hostas, and a large pot of Agapanthus, both of which we brought from the lovely mature garden of our last house. I miss everything about that garden.

Grammaretto I love Daphne we had a bush when I was growing up. It reminds me of the whip and top season. I now have 2 in my garden.

I do feel a very strong feeling of responsibility for the plants in my care and as a result I become extraordinarily upset when a plant is lost. Is this “emotional attachment?”

I must be because I spend hours every day tending to their every need, I love bomb them while they are with me, then when they die I take seed where I can and grow them again next year

I have self set forget-e-nots which as you’ll know are the emblem for Dementia and Alzheimer’s UK. They pop up in all sorts of places now and I’m devastated if I ever have to remove them for being in the wrong place.

Yes, I do. There are some in particular which have special meaning and I do my best to ensure that they do well. It is always a bit sad when a favourite plant dies, but I use that as an excuse to replace it with something new 😁.

Also plants from friends and families either as gifts or as off shoots from those growing in their gardens. I have mint and violets from my grandmother’s garden for example. I also buy plants that with special names such as the rose Sweet Honey in memory of my dog. I look after them all but those are extra special.

I had an unusual hawthorn (crataegus x lavalleei ""Carrieri").
It was a magnet for bees, cats and birds and I was bereft when it had to be taken down.
The tree surgeon left me a section of the trunk. I offered the wood to a turner for free and in return he made me two bowls which I have as a memento.

I'm very attached to the roses because they were all bought for a reason and with a specific name.

Definitely. I had some lovely Corn Marigold in a side border and was going to collect the seeds for next year. I looked out the window and they were gone. Hubby decided to do a clearance of 'dead' plants!

Oh definitely attached to plants that have been given to me or have come from late loved ones gardens. All hold dear memories.

A few years ago when we had a particularly wet winter with hard frosts, I lost some of my potted favourites which were hardy until then. I now have a collection of mini greenhouse covers which I use in the winter to protect their replacements.
Amongst the favourites I lost were: pink Cordylines, Fatsia Spiders Web and giant Agapanthus.
I spray the Fatsias with a wildlife safe deer repellent as in the past I lost a large one, eaten down to just a stalk. I don't mind other shrubs being nibbled, as I feel the deer's need is greater than mine. They tend to mainly browse lightly so that new shoots grow for the next banquet.

Agapanthus is classed as an environmental weed where we live but I still like it and have some down the bottom of the garden. It does spread a bit I have to admit.

I was very attached to the garden we have just left, a third of an acre of terraced hillside. I had over 70 Azaleas and Rhododendrons, many unusual trees, hydrangeas of every blue, pink, purple and white shade. Fabulous climbing roses, specimen trees.
It was a lot to manage as the warm wet climate saw things grow overnight!

Well, I do get annoyed with things when they just up and die for no good reason.

I do as well. The one I particularly was attached to was a small Monkey puzzle tree my Late mum bought for me. It thrived so well over many years in a pot, every couple of years I had to get a bigger pot, in the end it really needed to go in the ground, as I couldn't find a pot any bigger than the one it was in (it was huge) so I contacted the council parks team on line to ask would they like it.
They replied almost instantly, yes please.

Few weeks later a flat bedded truck arrived, the tree was loaded and off to a new home. I asked the men if would call it "Violet" after my mum, they said happy to do so.
Sad to see it go but it had to.

I have grown mistletoe on our apple trees. Very attached and proud of that.

Yes, I definitely do. I’ve got a miniature rose that I had when my daughter was born, which I fret over - I’ve just repotted it because it was struggling, and taken some cuttings. I’ve got an acer atropurpureum which is also in a pot, and a real beauty that’s 30+ years old, and some dahlias I’ve had for years too. My other baby is my chocolate cosmos, which gets gold star treatment.