Its way too soon for me to talk trades as its still an icy snow covered tundra out here at the moment,lol. But i would like to make a trade with you in another month or so. My interests are in your opuntia. My trade page is way out of sorts. Im starting over. I dont know what your interests are but i do have some shade plants or plants that can take part shade. If you like violets, i have a viola rubra, and a freckled violet ( Viola sororia "freckles". i have a bunch of really nice ferns that i need to thin out, some of them are cinnamon fern, ostrich fern, hay scented fern, new york fern, christmas fern and a type of rock polopody fern. I also have some Native iris cristata and some native mayapple plants for a partial shaded area. i have oodles of green hosta and variegated hosta, I probably have more things but my brain is fried. I should have been in bed loooooong ago! Plmk if you are interested in a trade. thank you very much! melissa

Looks like False Nettle Boehmeria cylindrica to me. False nettle looks very much like stinging nettle and even fooled someone leading a guided walk on wild medicinal plants I was on last year into thinking it was stinging nettle. Since I didn't see the hairs on the plant and wasn't convinced I got to be the one to touch it and confirm it wasn't stinging nettle. ;) It grows here in Western NY State and as my neighbor across Lake Ontario, I would suspect in your location as well. FataMorgana

Thugs may show up at garden club sales, but you may also find plants that can be divided or groundcovers that spread in a more friendly way, plants such as Hosta or some of the Geraniums. I would take a tablet or your phone and look things up on a reliable website such as the MOBOT Plant Finder or the New England wildflower's GoBotany or even just type in the plant name and the word invasive or thug to find out if it is invasive in the scientific sense (spreading into wild areas via wind, water, or animals and displacing natives) or just a thug in the garden like your spiderwort can be if give free reign to seed around. I would also encourage you to look at nonnatives since many are loved by insects and other pollinators when added to the mix. For instance many of the native plants to New England where I live tend to be woodland plants since our climax vegetation is forest, and many gardens have at least some sun. Rgardless, ask the folks if behind the counter if they are familiar with the plants you are considering and whether they spread aggressively.

Sandy, I took that picture at a wooded area next to a prairie. It's not mine. I do have a small colony of about 10 Pilea pumila plants. My former plants dissapeared when conditions became dryer. I started growing them again this year and I want many more.They produce a lot of seeds, and by just spreading the seeds further out than where they drop should give you a nice sized colony relatively fast. I don't have any areas that remain continuously moist, so I need to give mine supplemental watering. You are lucky that yours grows well without any help. So far the deer haven't touched my plants. They have nibbled on a Hosta and brown eyed susan. I grow the native wood nettle, Laportea canadensis also. It's bigger, and also makes an impressive groundcover. It has a sting. I think the sting from Laportea canadensis is more of an itchy sting. The sting of stinging nettle, Urtica dioica is more of a burning sting imo. I don't have any weeds that need suppressing, so I would like to have drifts of Pilea mixed in with other shade loving natives, spring ephemerals, grasses, sedges. It's an ongoing project but very enjoyable. Good luck with your plants, I hope the deer stay away. Sorry there's no picture of the Pilea colony, but one plant popped up in front of some Laportea canadensis in another part of the yard. The wood nettle flowers are bigger and more noticable.These are my Pilea pumila plants.