Buying Plants and Buying Books

I cannot take credit for this idea.

You’ve no doubt seen variations of it all over the internet.

“You didn’t buy a (fill in the blank) today! Good job! Your reward is you can buy a (fill in the blank with the same thing) today.”

But really, when you are obsessed interested in something, you’ll begin to see that something everywhere and find there are many opportunities to open up your wallet and buy some of whatever it is.

It could be plants.

It should be plants!

If you are with other people and you find yourself looking at some plants for sale, which these days could be almost anywhere, and one of those other people says something like, “Why do you need that plant?” that person goes on the list of “maybe they aren’t your people.” (Also, not a unique idea I came up with… this “they aren’t your people” idea.)

Those questioning people should go on that “maybe” list because they may be just trying to help you come up with a good reason to buy the plant so when the next “friend” comes along and says, “you don’t need that plant,” you’ll have a ready answer as to why you do need it.

And you’ll know to put that other person on the “they aren’t your people” list.

Kidding.

It’s always a good idea to think before you buy because worse than the person who buys all the plants is the person who buys all the plants and then lets them languish on their patio or, in the case of indoor plants, in their original pots shoved into some dark corner with inadequate lighting, waiting for their forever homes.

Tsk tsk.

Buy all the plants, but at least know where you are going to plant them first!

And now, a variation on that theme… books!

Books are a little bit different from plants in that if you buy a book and let it lay around somewhere without being read, at least it doesn’t die like a plant could! The worst thing that could happen is you could leave it in a room with full sun so the cover fades a bit. Or you could forget you bought it and end up rebuying it if you didn’t remember buying it. (Special editions do not count as a duplicate copy of a favorite book, by the way.)

I’ve done that… bought a book I didn’t realize I had a copy of already.

But then this past winter I cataloged all my books using CollectorZ.com software. I scanned those with barcodes of the ISBN and hand-entered the rest. Yes, I found a few duplicates. Oops. I also found a couple of shelves worth of books I no longer want that I’m still figuring out how to get rid of in a respectful way. Now when I’m thinking of buying a book, I can quickly look at my personal catalog of books on my phone to see if I already own it.

Hmmm… I wonder what it would take to catalog all of my plants. And then I laughed and laughed.

I’m not one to leave tags all over the garden, but I know gardeners with special collections do label their plants in their gardens, and I applaud them for this!

Me? I have hundreds of tags in a basket, in a pot in the garage, over there in that pile, and even a few stuck in books as bookmarks. I’ve started many times to cull through those tags, tossing some, keeping some, putting some in pile labeled “missing” because I couldn’t think where those plants were now. Dead? No! Presumed forever missing because hope springs eternal in a garden.

And every book on your “to be read” pile has a chance of being read.

And everyone laughed and laughed at the thought of both ideas.