The Contentment and the Joy of Collecting

I don't have a problem...really I don't.

I never really thought of myself as a collector…of anything. At least not a collector in the traditional sense of accumulating unusually large numbers of very specific things. I have a BUNCH of wine books, but that’s more a function of working in the wine business and wine PR and writing reviews of books.

I have a pretty good collection of first editions of Gore Vidal and Anne Rice books…But nothing that would identify me as a fanatic.

The only collecting fanatics I’ve ever really known well are wine collectors. I first started to encounter this genre of collectors when I helped open WineBid in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The buyers who came their to pick up the results of their winning bids were definitely fanatics. They’d leave the WineBid warehouse in Napa with cases and cases of wines…every single month. I didn’t need to see their homes to know that the stuff was stacked everywhere.

The question of the wine collector class came up at the National Association of Wine Retailers Annual Summit a couple of weeks ago. The discussion was about who was still collecting and how the market for collectible wines is responding. The discussion made clear there are two types of collectors: investors and lovers.

I’ve always understood myself as a regular sort of fellow with no serious obsessions. Then I started to think twice as l let my mind drift to thinking what I needed to do when I returned home from San Francisco, and I realized I may not be such a regular fellow. Thinking about my garden at home, I realized I AM a collector of sorts: I collect Hostas.

Those of you who are gardeners with a good deal of shaded areas around your home are probably familiar with the Hosta. Hostas are shade-loving perennial plants prized for their lush, ornamental foliage. They come in thousands of varieties, ranging from tiny, delicate forms to massive, architectural leaves. Cultivated mostly in temperate climates, they thrive in moist, well-drained soil and are remarkably low-maintenance. Those of us to tend to plant many types love them for their versatility—bold, blue-green leaves, as well as variegated or textured types that add dimension and interest to garden landscapes.