I have recently brought back into the Kitchen our Christmas cactus (not even sure what its proper name is!) it is flowering away, something it has done every year for the last 41 years, it was on my wife's kitchen windowsill when I first met her. Anyway it occurred to me to wonder what other long term plants you all have, inside or out. Are there things if you moved you would make the effort to take with you? christmas cactus2 by charliepridham, on Flickr
There are one or two things in the garden that we bought shortly after buying our first house, like a Lonicera periclymenum sold to us as just plain "Honeysuckle" by Bees of Colchester (long since gone) and its the best form we have yet come across but has no name
I keep meaning to get a cutting of a Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera I think?) off my wife's cousin; she has some offspring from their Grandmother's which was massive, it trailed nearly to the floor from the pedestal it was sat on, and it would be nice to continue the lineage.
We have a Cactus which my wife had at University, and has followed her around. Its been routinely stood in poor light with no care, but now given more attention it will probably grow to a fair size. For something that probably started life in a 2", or smaller, pot its now 18" tall and nicely "fat" :)
I also have a Cheese plant, from my youth, which is pretty massive - it now forms part of my Exotic garden in the summer. It is no longer given house-space in the winter, having to make do with frost-free instead.
Other than that I have Snowdrops and Cyclamen which have been divided and moved with us over the years; they originated from my parent's house from when I was a nipper, and also some similar plants that friends of parents had in their gardens and provide a nice memory of them, and all the help and encouragement they gave me when my hobby started developing as a teenager :)
THere's probably some ground elder, bindweed and couch that has piggy-backed on those plants too!
Unfortunately, I just lost my oldest plant, a Ferocactus that was over 30 years old and about two feet tall. It got the rot that's been reducing my cactus collection considerably over the past year and a half, despite my attempts to control it with such fungicides as remain available to the home gardener. An attempt to re-root the top failed, as the rot got in there as well - and it was the most inopportune time of year anyway.
I have another cactus nearly as old, which still has its original and obsolete label 'Cereus' and is a solitary, narrow plant about three feet tall. I reckon I've had that for nearly 30 years.
A Philodendron selloum five feet wide and a smaller-leaved Monstera deliciosa about eight feet long are second or third generation propagules from plants acquired 25-30 years ago.
And the original material for the ever-expanding colony of Persicaria amplexicaule in the front garden was obtained from my then-partner's parents' garden in Hampshire in about 1988.
A girl, part of my teenage group of mates, had a Magnolia (bog standard N. soulangeana I expect) in her garden. It was planted in a decent diameter patch of lawn in the middle of the circle of their drive in front of the house. Bought by her father (a non gardener) on her birth. I expect he went to the garden centre and bought whatever looked good and was in flower.
But ... at her 21st birthday party it was spectacular :) and huge, and filled that grass centre circle.
I have a weeping cherry that I bought, similarly, to mark my wife's birthday when we moved in here. Studiously trained upward its pretty tall now, and once it has filled out up all of its height will look spectacular each time her birthday comes round.
You just need to stay-put if you plant that type of memento.
