You can tell the (flower) garden has gotten out of hand when you are able to pick a nice mess of raspberries from volunteer vines in the flower bed....sigh...I need to downsize and start over.

This captures me too, but relevant to the forum this is in, it's been because I have too many favourite plants.

Mine would be... when you could fully landscape a friend's house with plants from your garden, and it would improve your own garden if you did.

KarinL... echoing the sigh.

I decide that the weeds' seeds will be good food for the birds when winter comes, so I just leave them there.

Never if you are able to keep it tended. Due to disability and age, I've switched to crepe myrtles (pink), camellias (different shades of pink), azaleas - pink and white, monkey grass along the walk, yellow Stella De Oro Lilies, Irises (different colors), peonies, roses, lavender spirea, white gardenias, blue, pink, and lavender hydgranias (I know spelled wrong), hostas, one river birch - where the Hostas are, mixed with coral bells, rust/yellow mums and Autumn Sedum for fall, hanging baskets (this year on the porch) are ferns - last year were ivy geraniums (peppermint). I have one large bed beside the drive, with smaller ones along the fences front and back. Heavily mulched it is easier to keep up - and the shrubs and the ones that come back every spring make it so much easier. I pay a gardener to mulch once a year, and to mow as needed. I love being able to walk out to pick a bouquet for inside and still have color. The trick in this .16 of an acre yard is the shrubs and crepe myrtles so no huge amount of a bed is needed. At my old home I had 2 1/2 acres, over 80 azaleas around the pool - huge beds everywhere. Way too much work for this old, in a wheelchair at times lady. I also planted thornless raspberies and blackberries, a pear, apple and Asian tree along the fence line - and a persimmon that are just beginning to come along. Strawberries are along the foundation on one side - and a few asparagus. Herbs are in pots as a rule.

Would 457 identified, cataloged, and tracked plants be too many on a half acre plot? I have them plotted on a cad program but have neglected to update it after a rash of donations over a year ago. My mother started it 70 years ago and I have inherited it.

It doesn't seem to require all that much maintenance probably due to the fact that it is time
based. Color exists in clumps depending on the month and circulates
with the time of year.

Earliest flowers near the house in March moving to the far back in June/July and back again along the borders ending with chrysanthemums at the house again.

I weed twice a year, maybe......Still, I am forever transplanting, dividing, and finding more to add......