I saw a version of this, unattributed, on another thread and it gave me many a chuckle. Other criteria started popping into my head, so I have just finished editing and supplementing it for a new (much longer!)version. Please feel free to add!!

best,

mindy

www.cottonarboretum.com/

You Know You Are Addicted to Gardening When...

Your neighbors recognize you in your pajamas, rubber clogs and a cup of coffee.

You grab other peoples banana peels, coffee grinds, apple cores, etc. for your compost pile.

You have to wash your hair to get your fingernails clean.

You check the weather forecast more often than most things.

You know the temperature of your compost every day.

Running out of super phosphate, dried manure, lime or coarse builders sand -is a major catastrophe.

You can never ever account for all your trowels or pairs of snippers.

A miner's lamp-hat is one of your prized possessions, for nighttime planting.

You buy a bigger truck so that you can haul more mulch and seaweed.

The bigger truck you buy is a 4×4 so that you can truck in rocks from the country.

You enjoy crushing Japanese beetles, lily beetles, and snails and the sound is very satisfying.

You can be found at night, roaming your garden with a flashlight and an awaiting container of salt, for slugs.

You are fluent in Botanical Latin and Greek.

Your non-gardening spouse becomes conversant in botanical names.

You are supremely grateful that your spouse speaks Botanical because your memory is not improving.

You find yourself rubbing leaves, flowers and trunks of trees wherever you go, even at funerals.

You dumpster-dive for spring bulbs after commercial landscapers remove them to plant annuals.

You curb- cruise local churches for discarded pots of Easter lilies.

You look upon an expensive plant purchase or a recent failed experiment with Zone-challenging as "cheaper than a flower arrangement with a one-week shelf life."

You look upon your yearly budget for annuals as "cheaper than a month/year of flower arrangements with a one-week shelf life."

You regularly check Craigslist for plant sales and give-aways.

With each year, your lawn area gets considerably smaller.

It becomes the norm that carloads of plants are purchased without particular planting spots in mind.

Google Image, gardenweb.com, d'sgarden.com, and mobot.org are your best web friends.

You plan vacation trips around the locations of botanical gardens,nurseries,arboreta,garden tours,etc.

You sneak home a 7 foot Japanese Maple and wonder if your spouse will notice.

In your budget, plants are more important than groceries.

You always carry a shovel, plastic bags and bottled water in your trunk -as emergency tools.

You appreciate your Master Gardener badge more than your jewelry.

You talk "dirt" at baseball practice.

You spend more time chopping your kitchen greens for the compost pile than for cooking.

You like the smell of horse manure better than Chanel.

You rejoice in raineven after 10 straight days of it.

You have pride in how bad your hands look.

You have a compost container on your kitchen counter.

You can give away plants easily, but compost is another thing.

Soil test results actually mean something.

You understand what IPM means and are happy about it.

Youd rather shop in a nursery than a clothing store.

You know that Sevin is not a number.

You take or send every single person who enters your house on a "garden tour."

You look at your childs sandbox and see a raised bed.

You look at the roof over your screened porch and think about Japanese roof iris.

You 'Trash cruise' for things to use in your garden work- area.

You distribute neighborhood flyers soliciting autumn leaves and pine needles.

You ask for tools for Christmas, Mother/Fathers day, your Birthday and any other occasion you can think of.

Every room in your house has notepads or slips of paper with gardening To-Do lists.

You brake for tantalizing garden vignettes, hidden garden views, and Plant Sales.

You are never satisfied to grow only plants that are hardy to your area.

Every bathroom in your house contains garden catalogues.

You name garden beds after the people whose plants fill them.

Your watering of potted plants in relentless heat is as important as feeding your animals and family.

You mourn a lost plant in the few minutes it takes to write down the plant to replace it.

Like "The Scottish Play", the W word is never uttered by you.

You rejoice in having the kind of dog that keeps Ws away.

You commandeer yourself or the nearest resident male - to mark your garden boundary weekly, in order to keep Ws away.

You actually are not resentful of major neighboring new construction because all the heavy equipment drove away the resident W population.

You collect swept-up clippings from your local hair salon and apply them to your hosta crowns to keep away deer.

Your cellar, bulkhead, unheated attic and garage become increasingly filled with overwintering potted plants.

You have convinced an airline pilot to share his cockpit with a rare tree that would not fit in the overhead.

You cannot look at a given plant in your garden without thinking of who gave it to you or told you about it.

You are always willing to try the latest anti-mosquito remedy.

You are frequently mistaken for a staff member by other nursery shoppers.

You justify running an errand in your gardening clothes because "at least it's not hair curlers."

You are the first in line at your local nurseries' End of the Season sales.

You randomly pull weeds wherever you go.

Your local library knows who you are.

You keep a set of gardening clothes and street clothes downstairs.

You cant bear to thin seedlings and throw them away.

You are on a first name basis with staff from at least 6 nurseries.

You have found yourself going to extreme measures to protect your garden from your neighbors' errant ways.

You scold bank managers and total strangers who dont take care of their potted plants.

You know exactly how many bags of fertilizer/potting soil/mulch your car will hold.

You drive around your area hoping to score extra bags of leaves for your compost pile.

It is not uncommon for you to be planting spring bulbs in December, with pick ax if necessary.

Your preferred reading matter is plant and seed catalogs.

Normal Housework is not in your gardening season repertoire,and when your tolerance of dirt outside carries over to your tolerance of dirt inside.

Your yearly gardening budget is rational because you do not have a boat,a plane, a summer house, or racehorses.

A single flower can change your whole day.

Take-out, frozen and prepared entrees are your best non-winter friends.

You wear a T shirt illustrated with a car full of potted plants and the phrase, "Will Somebody Please Call My Sponsor?"

If it is too hot to garden, you can be found reading or writing about Gardening.

In your bedside prayers, you never fail to thank your garden mentors as well as Dan Hinckley, Michael Dirr, Tracy Di Sabato Aust, and the countries of Japan, China, Holland, England, and all the plant collectors and explorers of times past and present.

And last but not least:

You know full well that the Four Seasons are:

-Planning the Garden

-Preparing the Garden

-Gardening

~and~

-Preparing and Planning for Next Year's Garden.

edited and supplemented by Mindy Arbo