I doubt I know anything that you all don't, but in what is closing in on one year of gardening, I have learned: 1. Gardening is insanely addictive. I planted some red annual salvia and white petunias to cover and a stump. They looked so pretty, I was hooked! 2. Assume nothing! I live in extreme south Georgia. We don't have killing frosts, right? WRONG! I still had about half dozen or so of those original salvia growing and blooming in their bed. They looked gorgeous, until about a week ago. Now, they are brown goo. 3. Not everything likes to be heavily fertilized. Another member here (debbiep) lives right up the road from me. Over the summer she helped feed my growing addiction. She gave me two little tomato plants. I put them in my little, tiny edibles bed, dumped a ton of my guinea pig mulch on them and crossed my fingers. In short order, I had two huge, gorgeous plants, and one tomato between the two of them. :P 4. Irises are my absolute favorite flower, and despite all the gorgeous, diverse varieties that exist, there is no real red. 5. Your significant other may not always appreciate or even understand your passion. After I announced my plans to expand my UGA beds to include an homage to the other 11 SEC schools, my husband told me I was $E&(#W$&(# (insert your own pejorative) nuts. 6. Your children do not know the difference between seeds carefully harvested and laid out on paper plates or coffee filters to dry and trash. The same goes for newspaper and cardboard saved for weed barrier. :o I am certain there is more, I will try to share useful information as I think of it. Christan

I need a small amount of seeds to grow a few prairie dock plants in my yard. Please contact me if you have seeds to share. Thanks!

I've become much more disenchanted with selecting rose varieties than ever before - I'm not sure why, maybe because I'm still limited to my own window ledge and haven't been home to my old garden in a few years, but I don't think I'll be ordering much this season. I'm dismayed at the closing of Sequoia and may try to get a few rare things from them before the end. It always seems that the most promising varieties are quite out of reach, so for now, I think I'll concentrate my efforts on breeding more than acquiring and see if I can't make the rose I'm craving but simply cannot buy. At work, I'll continue adding to the collection of wonderful Chinese rose species and cultivars; this is one of my little pet projects to increase public (and institutional) awareness of these amazing and largely well-adapted plants. Marianne (if you read this), do you really feel that both helenae cultivars are equal in hardiness, and that your zones 4-5 are warmer than ours? From reading which roses do well where in Scandinavia, I was under the impression that a zone 4-5 hardy rose where you live is roughly equivalent to one at my home in Minnesota, also zone 4-5. I was also fairly sure I understood that 'Lykkefund' is less hardy than 'Hybrida', which hopefully is soon on its way to Ashdown from Europe courtesy of a certain GW member! Stefan

I have more seedlings than I have space! A happy problem but still I don't want to compost the extras. :-D Another low-maintenance native with a cool prehistoric look. The plant itself is short, the flower stalk very tall. If you don't have a plant I'm wanting to collect I will consider giveaways if you're willing to drive to the western 'burbs. I've had some difficulty in the past with trades going thru...I don't know if emails get lost in the system or what's going on. So, just posting here isn't going to work. If you want to trade, I need you to click on my GW username, then select 'send me an email,' and contact me that way.