Hi, I had someone very generously send me a package of seeds from The Butterfly Ranch I think it was called, last year. Well, my ex destroyed a lot of my plants and threw away some of my seeds & I no longer have any of them. :( Please, if you are still on GW & see this post, I would love to get some more of the seeds from you! I would be willing to send a SASBE and some of my veggie seeds if you want. Please let me know! =) Thanks - Steve

You can e-mail me, too if you are interested in any of these: Cleome (white with a touch of pink) Salvia coccinea Lady in Red Tithonia Torch (large orange Mexican sunflower) Gaillardia Sundance Bicolor Salvia Verticillata "Purple Rain" Balsam Impatiens - various colors Becky ramazz

Hi I'm interested in your: Hollyhock, green purple tansy Would be happy to trade any/all of these butterfly seeds: Flossflower, (Hardy Ageratum) Rudbeckia triloba Yarrow (white? possibly mixed?) Milkweed, common Gaillardia (Grandiflora or Puchella?) Blanket Flower Let me know if you might like to trade. Thanks, Tina

Blind_Aquilegia, Thank you so much for responding! I read your post on the Winter Sowing forum earlier this month. You are such an inspiration to me. You really have no idea. My son and I are huge dog lovers. We live in a condo and can't afford to own a dog so we have cats. We can't imagine what it would be like to depend on a dog, the way I'm sure you depend on Winna, and have that dog become ill. (Harvard educated! lol, No, Winnas education was much more intense than Harvard, more like West Point! Her PhD stands for Pup has Discipline.) With that in mind, all the money we earn we want to be used for the vet bills of a service dog already assigned to someone. We had been looking for a way to raise money for Canine Companions since early last year. Our boys are in 4th grade and the traditional ways of doing a fundraiser were too complicated or required too much money up front. In July I discovered winter sowing. I must admit to being ignorant in thinking that someone who is blind can't really see the beauty of a garden. You probably see everything that in my ignorance, Ive been missing, like texture and scent, like the sound the wind makes when it passes over the long threads of ornamental grasses or when it glides through the limbs of a willow tree. Thank you for reminding me that my idea of beauty is not the only way that beauty can be seen. Hopefully, Ill be able to teach this lesson to my Cub Scouts. Nathan, my son and I had planned on bringing all the left over plants from the sale to a nursing home. After reading your post that changed. I told my husband that I thought that we should do a small sensory garden with the scouts. Hes Nathans Den Leader. Hubby said he loved the idea, but he wants Nathan to do the garden as his Eagle Scout project. So the garden that was supposed to be a small corner of a local nursing home, has now taken on a life of its own. We may still do that for this year, but I have a feeling that in order for us to have all the features we want to include in our sensory garden, we could be working and planning for more than a year. If you allow me to pick your brain, you would be the one I go to for help with plant description as well as selection. I think it would be a great lesson to go to another garden with the scouts blindfolded and have them try to find a specific plant or feature using only verbal cues. Something Id like to try myself! You mentioned taste. When you smell strong herbs, like basil, cilantro, oregano, can you taste it? Ive always thought of our senses as being inter-related, like onions makes your eyes tear, chocolate makes your mouth water, spicy foods make you feel warm, and the smell of the litter box can make my son take off like a gazelle. Ive also noticed how sometimes when I cook, my husband will walk in and take in the aroma by taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, like closing his eyes will make it smell better. You also mentioned wind chimes and a Chinese gong. Both are very fun ideas. Most of the parks in our area do not have water and electricity, making a water feature more difficult. The park that Im hoping to get into does, it also has quite a few raised beds that are surrounded by seating. As soon as I have a chance, Ill check out Flower Scent Garden and let you know what I already have that would work and what I might get. Again, thank you so much for everything! Give Winna a hug for me, ok? Nancy