Fireweed can be invasive, but in the right spot it is great. I have it under a lodgepole pine in our yard, and it's about the only thing that will grow in that dry, needle-clogged area. The grass died out under the pine ages ago so the fireweed is a welcome additon. It does try to spread into the lawn but the lawnmower stops that, and it does spread to a nearby garden but it's easy to pull out and there aren't too many shoots to yank. One thing though, after it's flowered you probably want to cut the heads off before they go to seed, 'cause holy crap, it produces about 10 trillion seeds from each plant, and you'll have fluff everywhere! (Just bend the stalks below the flowers and they snap off easily.)

Marcia & Sharon - you girls are too funny! You give me too much credit to have purposely been alphabetical. I do agree that it would be just like Marcia to notice and sow them that way... :) Thanks again to you guys and all the other traders here on GW. I sowed a lot of seeds today from trades and I am as excited this year as I was last year as a first timer to see what interesting plants I can grow. Here is what I sowed: Columbine, Woodside Variegated (Aquilegia vulgaris) 100. Prairie Clover, White (Petalostemum candidum) 101. Prairie Clover, Purple (Petalostemum purpureum) 102. Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) 103. Rudbeckia hirta 'Sputnik' 104. Columbine - Unknown Blue Tall 105. Lily, Asiatic 'Angels Touch' x 'Fire Mountain' 106. Lily, Asiatic 'Connecticut King' x 'Fire Mountain' 107. Lily, Asiatic 'Fire Mountain' x ? 108. Scabiosa 'Blue Bonnet' 109. Phlox paniculata 110. Northern Catalpa 111. Coreopsis 'Tequila Sunrise' 112. Echinacea pallida? 113. Dendranthemum rubrum 114. Dragon's Head (Dracocephalum moldavicum) 115. Mistflower (Eupatorium dahurica) 116. Shepherds Scabiosa (Jasione Laevis) 117. Clematis ligustifolia 118. Gentiana andrewsii 119. Bird's Eye (Gilia tricolor) 120. Poppy 'Danish Flag' (Papaver somniferum) 121. Poppy, Deep Purple (double) 122. Quaking Grass (Briza maxima) I am trying to cut back on indoor sowing because I just don't have the space so I am anxious to get sowing more annuals soon. Susan

Maybe you will move to Grants Pass. We're selling in Applegate Valley to its south, to move to Beaverton, where I'll fare best for my niche in business. But I enjoyed our two years here. I drove to Grants Pass last week to make a short video of the drive and a few sights to add to my Applegate Valley web page, along with the other videos. Grants Pass has shaped-up very nicely since the 80s, and would be my first choice of a city to live in if we were ever to live in southern Oregon again. I got some nice photos or the wildflowers around here this year too, from Brookings to the Rogue River National Forest. The highway to Brookings, through northern California and the redwoods, has one of the better wildflower displays I've seen in the wild - Rhododendron, azalea, iris, trillium, etc., etc..

Around here foxglove is a full sun or light shade plant. In the rest of the country they're shade plants so people moving here tend to think they need shade here to but they don't. And most all the gardening books list them as shade plants too. Not so here. Reseeders will reseed where they want, not where you want. You can always transplant the volunteers. They do like organic matter and moisture and don't seem to mind competition, I have them coming up all over my raised bed right in with all the other plants, in a southern exposure with sun nearly all day long - long enough for the roses to thrive. I like it fine that way. Some get yanked, some get moved. They're not long lived perennials as stated above, but biennials that reseed and put out offshoots. You see them all over in sunny roadcuts and clearcuts and disturbed pastures, the key is moist soil.