Have you ever had to leave a beautiful plant behind when you moved away?

Your lucky it's a beautiful tree that the new family is enjoying as much as you once did. It's a beautiful gift, and I know you must miss it so much. My mother went through the same thing. At our old house my mother filled the whole yard with beautiful perennial flowers that flourished in great soil. Many of my young childhood memories are of her and my father working in the yard and her teaching me how to garden and grow a wonderful masterpiece. When we moved from the house, my mother gave the mother of the new family the option to keep the gardens as a gift- the they had younger children and my mom knew the mother would be busy and that thought that this would be something nice. Or my mother offered to dig up the flowers and transport them to our new house and leave the soil in a good fresh condition for her to start her own garden. The women told my mother she loved the flowers and was thankful and grateful for the gift. My mother left all the flowers without hesitation. The soil at our new house wasn't nearly as good, but my mom kept planting. A few mothers later when the flowers at our old home would be in bloom, my family drove past our old house, just so that my mom could see here flowers in bloom just one last time. When we drove past we saw that the new family had ripped up all of my mothers old flowers and left them in a huge pile of dirt to be hauled away by the side of the road. My mother was devastated. I still miss those beautiful flowers. Never seen anything like it since.

The hardest plant I ever had to turn my back on was our grapefruit tree in Miami, FL. It was there when we bought our first home. Our 5th child was born there an we all lived like the Waltons with so much love, homeschooling and playing in hot summers. The kids loved to try and climb the tree - it was huge, and it shaded our home school room windows and the girls' room.

I found out the first year there that fertilizing twice a year caused our beautiful tree to have MANY sweet grapefruits. In fact, they were SO sweet that none of our kids knew people put sugar on grapefruits until we moved away and had to buy them from the store.

Fruiting season was from around Thanksgiving through February and the kids would go to the tree and shake a limb until the fruit fell, and break it on the sidewalk. I still remember watching them do that, how they would throw it onto the sidewalk until it spit and then bury their faces in each half, just letting the juice run down their shirts.

At breakfast time I just went out back and shook a branch. The ripest, sweetest ones graced our tables from the ground with no effort at all.

They were all under 12 years old when we left, and we all still talk about how wonderful that tree was. The kids all yelled, "Goodbye, grapefruit tree!" when we left.

I am saddened by the fact that many of my gardens, some of which took ten years to establish, were turned into parking lots or abandoned completely by the new owners. The last one I tended for several years I have yet to learn of its fate. I left just as the first season of blooms were to happen on the peony's I'd planted and the dog woods. Maybe I'll get to see those gardens again one day.

I even left behind several plants that I had moved with me for a decade or more, Clematis, roses and lilies. I moved aboard a boat where I plan to plant morning glories to twine into the standing rigging. She's a thirty two foot cutter named 'ANN'. My first mobile garden.

I've had to leave a row of tea bushes to move across the country. It was by far the most saddening thing to leave behind. Myself and many of the hobbyist gardener's I know tend to develop a sort of fondness for the little differences and quirks of each plant, even between those of the same species.

Leaving behind plants sucks, but at least you have room to grow a whole new set!

When I was small my parents had planted an Apple Tree when we moved into the house. The tree had just started to get good fruit production when we moved. I loved that tree. It was great for climbing and sour summer snacks. Rub it on your skin to get the sweaty salt to take the tartness away. You can do that as a kid at least.

>Yes, my wife had some beautiful flowers - really really special lilly's, very high quality - she is a horticulturalist and was working for a lilly company that developed the varietals and we had all kinds of special ones that few people in the world ever have due to their proprietary nature - we had to leave them in the house when we moved away - due to a lack of a place to replant the bulbs, unfortunately - so yes, I felt that way about all my plants too...then we sold the next house and I had planted an pinus orientalus, a very beautiful type of confier tree with bows that look like the tops of Chinese temples - and it grew to over 30 feet in just 5 years! Too big to take with me, and I was sick about that one too...

Yes, I had a big shade tree in the front yard and also had a beautiful orange lily that bloomed on or around Mother's Day every year. I also left a substantial amount of mature compost behind, which I might've bagged up if it hadn't been so cold and windy at the time.

I've left many wonderful plants in my life (the ones I couldn't kill).

I never really mourn their loss because they still give joy to others and I can always go back and visit them.

My mom and I planted a linden tree together when I was four, one of my first solid memories as a child.

The last time I saw it it was huge and it dwarfs the house.

On a similar vein, I'm known around here as the "plant-man" and when people in the community die they leave their plants with me to take care of or until I can find good homes for them.

That's how I got hooked on Adenium http://www.google.com/search?q=adenium&hl=en&clien... a friend and fellow MG left me her valuable bonsai collection in her will seven years ago.

RScott

I moved from a house last November. I had alot of plantings and I dug them all up. I tried to keep alot of dirt around the roots and filled the holes with topsoil. I stored all of the plants in my unheated garage until this spring. I am happy to report all of them survived and are thriving. I live in central Ohio.

Yes! I had to leave behind some gorgeous crepe myrtles and a baby magnolia. To this day, I miss them and can only hope somebody else is "babying" them the way I did!