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Careful, careful!

Danger! Danger!

In the United States a diamond-shaped sign in yellow means "CAUTION," a condition exists that requires extra diligence and awareness. Keep your eyes open and reduce your speed. Such warnings are seldom applied to gardening, but we'd be well advised to stay alert to the signs of a dangerous condition.

It starts with one. It always starts with one. If you're successful, it lives. If not, it dies. Either way we're strangely compelled to try another. Another color or form, another species, genera or group, a new companion or color combination. Our ardor for plants first stretches boundaries, then breaks them.

There is no end to it, you understand. Orchid growers branch out into succulents. Perennial lovers pot up containers and windowboxes, veggie producers put terraria together, just to see a little green in the winter.

Caution, ladies and gentlemen. It starts out innocently enough, but like a runaway bus careening downhill, it picks up steam threatening to roll over anything in its way. Our passion for plants may well outstrip our ability to care for them. The risk, of course, is that creating too much work will result in falling standards of care, leading to unhealthy plants, and, ultimately unhappiness.

SOOOO, take stock of your resources. Money is the least of them. Plant lovers can always find ways to accumulate plants. Time is important. There's far too little of it--and we tend to putter it away with our plants to begin with. Your physical (and mental for that matter) condition, like it or not, is another limiting factor--know what you're capable of and what is better left alone. Think about how much space you have available. You WILL run out. Know your limitations...and your limits.

The Chinese are supposed to have said about caution, "Of all the thirty-six alternatives, running away is best." But run to where? We all know don't we? We'll run to our favorite nursery. We'll throw caution (and its yellow sign) to the wind.

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