The 'liberate list': fact or fiction

The main way I decide which plants I want is through seeing other people's,  I don't have time to randomly search through books and the internet looking for plants that I may want and seeing plants in person gives you a much better idea of the plant.  I have lost count of the times I have seen photos on the internet and not thought much of the plant only to see it in person and gone WOW!

Sadly due to the type of plants, it is not as simple as seeing a plant and then popping down to the local garden centre to buy it. I learnt very quickly that often it can take months if not years to track down a plant having seen it in some collection, so it is much easier if you can get an offset off the person at the time.  As mentioned before, I am not above dropping hints and generally being a bit cheeky especially with friends.  I have actually sneaked plants out into my car, when the owners are not looking, but hasten to add always as a joke and I have always returned them with a big grin (although perhaps followed by a quick exit)!

It became a bit of a joke among my friends that when I visit they worry about plants I have expressed an interest in. My personal favourite is this photo when the person went as far as building a cage around a particular plant, and it still makes me laugh to see the photo. Before I knew it,  people started referring to my 'liberate list' which allegedly contains the plants from each persons collection that I would like to liberate. 

While I admit that each time I visit a collection if I see any plants I like they get added to my list of plants to find. Is there is a second list which also includes who owns the plant just in case I haven't found it by my next visit? Well that remains unconfirmed. 

So for the time being at least, the 'liberation list' is confined to the realms of fiction and that's the story I'm sticking to!