I’m a collector of the worst sort.
Totally obsessed with gathering up every example of my favorite thing and bringing it home to arrange in a display.
Every year, I add a few more. Or fifty.
I’m sure you know how innocently it starts: First you get one cute little elephant to sit on the shelf, then, before you know it, you’re putting up more shelves for the ever-growing herd.
Friends don’t help, when it comes to collecting. As soon as they notice you’re accumulating a certain type of thing, why, there’s your Christmas present for the next 10 years.
It’s not elephants for me, though. Not even cute ceramic pigs, or happy printed roosters on the tea towels, or that pretty pink Depression glass.
It’s plants.
I’ve only been here in the Rockies for four years or so now, but my collection is almost complete.
“Except for that little ceanothus [ (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus) ], and those white prickly poppies [ (Argemone polyanthemos) ], we now have every wildflower that grows in the Buckhorn Canyon in our garden,” I announced proudly the other day.
White prickly poppy, a native wildflower of the Colorado Front Range that I’m still lacking in my collection. That blossom is as big as my hand.
That was exaggeration, but not too far off the mark.
Still, husband Matt, I am happy to say, didn’t laugh. In fact, he was suitably impressed.
Of course, he’s been working on his own collection for some 20 years now.
Our place is full of them, and this spring he’ll be adding the piéce de resistance: a genuine imported-from-Sweden model that’s been sitting on a friend’s juniper- and sagebrush-covered land for about 30 years.
We transplant Volvos up here, too. Or at least Matt does. This prize specimen, currently resting in southern Colorado, will soon be joining the collection.
“Piece of cake,” he says, dreaming about replacing engines and transmissions and fondly looking at his wrenches like I do my favorite diggers.
Matt’s also seen how obsessed I can be.
Before every walk, I gather up my collecting tools—plastic grocery sacks stuffed into every pocket, and another bag of dripping wet paper towels, plus my rattail miner’s pick and steel transplanting trowel firmly in hand.
Bought this custom-made rattail miner’s pick 20 years ago, in my rockhound days. Turns out it’s the best-ever garden tool. And rock-prying-out tool. And #$^^&* invasive-grass removal tool.
The dogs learned fast that those preparations mean a walk is in the offing, and by the time I’m doing the final tightening of my boot laces, they’re doing the dance of joy, whining “Hurry up! Hurry up!”
“Think I’ll walk up to the high meadow this time,” or “Heading up by the blue clematis,” or “Might go up by the calypso orchids,” I call over my shoulder as I walk away with quick, eager steps.
Always a good idea to let someone know where you’re going, what with steep rocky cliffs, sticks that can catch an ankle, and bears and mountain lions in the neighborhood.
“Have fun!” he calls back, reaching for the right size socket in the tool drawer. Yep, he knows.
On the return trip a couple of hours later, my steps aren’t nearly as spry. That part is more of a trudge.
That’s because I’m weighted down with 20 pounds or so of plants and soil. Or maybe it’s 30 or 40 pounds.
All I know is by the time I come back, my arms are aching and my hands are numb from clenching the bags of garden additions.
Carefully clenching, of course. Don’t want to jostle fragile roots or break any stems or, worse yet, buds.
“Ahhh,” I sigh with relief, gently setting the six or eight bulging, heavy bags into the big washtub I keep half-filled with water.
Then, it’s rip a hole in the bottom of each bag, so water can get in, and make sure everybody, er, every plant, is comfortably settled within reach of the precious moisture.
Now it’s contemplation time. Time to sit and rest my aching knees while I think about where to put the latest haul.
“I need a bigger garden” is the frequent refrain.
And that one, Matt does laugh at.
He’s seen me rip out the invasive European smooth brome grass (Bromus inermis) on every side of the house for days at a time, and lug and lever big rocks to terrace slopes, until my “too small” garden now covers, oh, about a few thousand square feet, give or take.
The “upper garden,” ready for planting after removing invasive grass and rearranging rocks and adding rock slabs for steps so I don’t break my leg when puttering around. That boulder at top left is 6 feet tall and 8 feet wide…
Heck, I’m no good at estimating measurements. Let’s just say that what started as a reasonable size patch of flowers now stretches almost all the way to the woods.
Contemplation is my favorite part of all of this—imagining the effect when I move in the blue penstemons (Penstemon virens) and the dainty harebells (Campanula rotundifolia) and the gaillardia (Gaillardia aristata) and the golden asters (Heterotheca fulcrata) and the two dozen erigeron daisies (Erigeron spp.) and all the other treasures that are in the bags.
Mother Nature’s garden is the ultimate, so I took a cue from her and planted sunny gaillardia daisies (grown from seed) and harebells (transplanted, and fast-spreading) together.
In my mind’s eye, the new plants will create huge swaths of color.
In reality, a few dozen plants, even fifty, don’t go far.
“Is that all?” I grumble, standing back to admire after getting everybody into the ground.
We’re lucky to have a big place to collect from. Our hundred acres (I know, I know, I can’t believe it either) gives me plenty of opportunity to take one or two plants here, one or two there, without making any dent at all. In fall, it’s seeds I gather, and a snipped seedhead here or there doesn’t affect the wild display, either.
But I also salvage plants from the side of the dirt road when the grader goes through, leaving them uprooted and dying.
Our friends and neighbors here in the canyon are wonderfully generous, too, if they have something we don’t. (The plant life changes a bit, even 500 feet lower in elevation—lavender penstemon instead of royal blue—although those contributions to my collection flourish just fine in my “everything in the Buckhorn” garden.)
The other night, I did a rough count of the number of species now in my “collection.”
Eight kinds of penstemons (or is it 12? some of those natural variations are tricky). Fourteen different daisies. Five native grasses. And then all of the one-onlys, like harebells and white mountain candytuft and sulphur buckwheat and, oh, let’s just say I got to at least 40 of the one-of-a-kinds before I lost track.
Yep, a lot.
Lots of our native wildflowers have the word “montana” in their names, because we live in the high mountains. This is Noccaea montana, or white mountain candytuft. Easy from collected seed.
But, boy, Mother Nature is even worse (or is that “better”?) than I am at collecting.
Her showstopping colonies of wildflowers, the ones that turn our natural subalpine meadows to sheets of color, make my efforts look like nothing.
Then again, she’s been working on her gardens for a lot longer than I have.
Often, I laugh at myself.
All I have to do is take a walk to see all sorts of wonderful wildflowers, in arrangements I can never hope to recreate, even if I had another whole lifetime.
My efforts may be meager by comparison. Still, they’re immensely satisfying.
Mother Nature wins the Best Gardener title, by a mile. No contest there.
But my patches of transplanted and seed-started wildflowers are mine.
And, as anyone who gazes at their own collection of elephant statues knows, that’s the joy of collecting.
Hm, looks like it’s time for another trip to the grocery store. Seems I’m running out of bags….
How to Be an Ethical Collector, Or, Don’t Make Me Get Mad at You
This has been a lighthearted look at collecting plants, but there are some big, heavy ethics involved.
I’ve seen way too many native wildflower colonies destroyed by greedy plant thieves—a bloodroot colony in Pennsylvania, trilliums in Oregon, mariposa lilies in Montana, even endangered spider lilies in Indiana… the list goes on and on.
At left, mariposa lily, a lovely and not abundant wildflower. Never tried to transplant it, never will. Snuggled beside it, erigeron daisies, an easy-to-move candidate for the garden. But only a few from each giant patch! (Note exclamation point: Yep, I’m serious about this.)
Seems like greed takes over, and commonsense and self-control go out the window.
Don’t be one of those people.
Collectors like that get people like me so mad that some of us now say, don’t EVER transplant wild plants. Bad, bad, bad! Don’t even think about it!
Maybe I just have more faith in people than some of my colleagues do, but I don’t join the herd on this one. I say, sure, transplant wildflowers—but do it ethically. And carefully. And without causing problems for Mother Nature’s garden, or for yourself.
No, I won’t bring you a cake when you’re jailed for trespassing. And yes, I will send you hate rays when I see the bog plants you stole declining and dying in your non-bog garden. (Spiderlily Thief, I’m talking to you; I saw what you did, and I know who you are.)
I’m also a realist, though. I know that people yank wildflowers up willy-nilly, with hopes of taking them to their gardens. (Stop it, right now!) And I know that ethical collecting is a good way to learn about plants, and to grow an even deeper love for them.
So let’s be real. And self-controlled.
Set your plant lust aside, and think rationally.
Best idea: Start with seeds. Success with a single seedpod is super gratifying, even though you have to wait longer for flowers. And it lets you know whether your yard is right for that wildling. (Rules #2, 3 and 4 below still apply!)
Native pollinators love native wildflowers, and so do I. This gaillardia is even easier to start from seed than to transplant, and it blooms the first year, if frost is kind enough to hold off to late August. See those blurry seedpods in the background? Easily 20, 30 new plants from each one.
If you really, really want to dig up a plant, stick to these guidelines, and you’ll be guilt-free.
And if being a good person isn’t enough to make you behave, just remember—you really, really don’t want to see me when those hate rays are aimed at you.
The 10 Commandments of Plant Collecting
1. Always, always, ALWAYS ask permission, if you want something on land that’s not yours. “Public land”? That’s not yours, either. Hands off.
2. Look at the conditions in which the plant is growing. Can you match those in your garden? If not, don’t bother; you’ll have the death of a plant on your conscience.
3. One. Take only one. Don’t yield to greed and dig up that whole patch!
4. If there is only one, or only a few, leave it be. That small population is usually a clue that the plants are slow to reproduce, or picky about their place. Do not disturb!
(Yes, lots of exclamation points in these rules—plant addicts can forget all about commonsense in the heat of the moment.)
Our native clematis (Clematis columbianum), a gorgeous blue. Have only found one vine so far on our entire place. And yes, I lust after it for my collector garden, but I will enjoy it where it is. Which is in a ravine, where it gets extra water from snowmelt, and keeps company with fabulous little calypso orchids and arnica, all moisture-loving plants that would turn up their heels and die in my dry, sunny garden.
5. Don’t try to move a wildflower that’s in bloom or close to blooming. The flowers will wilt and die, and you’ll feel awful. Mark the spot, and come back early next spring.
6. Take your plants from out-of-the-way places: Those pretty things by the road? They’re admired by other passersby, too. You don’t want to take away the pleasure for those folks, do you? Do you?? I didn’t think so 
7. Never try to move orchids or Indian paintbrush (or plants in your neck of the woods that are similarly finicky). They need a whole bunch of specific friends to create the symbiotic relationships that keep them alive. Don’t know what’s an orchid or what’s a paintbrush? Check a field guide. Don’t know what’s symbiotic? Google “symbiotic plants [your state]” before you set foot outside.
8. Daisies are a good place to start. And by daisies, I mean anything with a daisy-shaped flower, whether it’s asters, erigerons, gaillardia, perennial sunflowers, or any other member of the clan. They’re almost all vigorous growers, easy to start from seed, and multiply relatively quickly.
9. Your fingers are your most important tool. Use them to feel around before digging, to find out whether the roots are fibrous or a taproot, so that you have an idea of how deep to dig. Good rule of thumb: Dig twice as deep—three times deeper is even better—as you think you’ll need to, after that initial exploration.
10. Immediately wrap the soil-covered roots in a soaking wet paper towel. Refill the hole you left. Replant within a couple of hours, watering your new friend well, and keeping it moist but not soggy until it settles in.
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