there is a pretty active western mi hosta club out that way ... they usually sponsor some type of garden walk in summer.. and if for nothing else.. the fee to join [if any] .. is worth the gardens you can walk thru ... great peeps too .... ken Here is a link that might be useful: link

Hooray to that, Liz, I can't stand the non-natives people plant in their yards, like crepe myrtle, Bradford pear, etc. They aren't host to any leps, (I guess a generalist moth might use them) and I can't remember ever seeing one nectar on the flowers. Spicebush won't stay alive here in the summer, no matter how shady and damp the situation. I had one that was going great in the cooler, very wet spring and summer we've had, but when we finally had a few hot days, even though the soil it's growing in didn't dry up, it died back. Where you live they'll probably thrive, though, and I think they'd make excellent plants for your yard. Birds LOVE sassafras seeds (will fight over them) so I know they'd love spicebush seeds, too. since the two plants are so nearly the same. Just be sure they don't dry out! Sherry

Thirteen days till the swap! We still need a couple more people to volunteer to bring some kind of a beverage, and with this many people we need two or three people to bring tables for the food. Also, if you dont want to sit on the ground, we need more people to bring some chairs. With 31 people planning to come, and a bunch of guests, surely there must be some people who can help with these things! Heres the current list of whos bringing what. Please post if you can bring any of the things we still need. ~ Beverage lemonade, iced tea, something else? [Need some more names here!] MstyWoods LindseyinEvergreen - Thai iced tea ~ Styrofoam cups TreeBarb ~ Paper plates MstyWoods ~ Napkins Skybird ~ Plastic silverware Jennifer/jclepine ~ Ice Angel ~ Chairs: 4 treebarb [30 - 40 people and four chairs! We need more folks!] ~ Tables: [Need 2 or 3 people bringing tables to be sure we have enough for the food!] If you still havent gotten the email from Angel with her address, shes posted HER address just above, so email YOUR email address to her. BE SURE to include your screen name so she knows who you are! If you dont send your email address to her, you WILL NOT get her address for the swap! (And if you sent your address already but didnt get the email from her, send it again!) Heres the list of people who are, or hope to be coming as I have it right now! Im once again posting locations for the people whos locations I know that are out of the immediate Metro Denver area so if anyone wants to arrange to carpool, theyll know whos near them. [And I once again encourage all those who havent yet done it to ENABLE PERSONAL MESSAGING on your GW account! Aside from posting a message on the swap thread and hoping the person sees it, PMing is the only way to contact somebody should the need come up! Enabling personal messaging DOES NOT make your email address public! There are a LOT of you who still dont have PMing enabled, and there is absolutely no way to contact you should something come up!] If youre not on the list but should be, post or post again that youre comingbut even more importantly, send Angel your email address! Im keeping an unofficial list of attendees, but I am not keeping a list of email addresses this time, so Angel is the one you need to get your email address to! AlmondStriations - Erie AngelinaGarden - Angel AutoDidact Azura - (with son and possibly guest) Bekajoi (has a van for possible car pooling from COS) Bexay6211 [may not be able to come Bexay, hows your knee?] BindweedBenders ButterCup 2010 Cyndigo (Boulder) GinnyTrcka (and friend) GJMancini (and sister) GreenBean08 - Amy (Falcon, NE of COS) GreenShark (COS) H Geist HighAltTransplant - Bonnie (Silt!) JCLepine - Jennifer (and significant other?) (Nederland) KarengGrow - (Black Forest, willing to bring others from the Colorado Springs area) KvenKat (and maybe husband) Laura42 (Ft, Collins) LindsyinEvergreen (Evergreen) LuckyBottom - (Kersey, east of Greeley) MayberryGardener MstyWoods PolygonumTinctorium (near Monument Hill) PowerMuffin (+ 1 or maybe 2) (Longmont guess you dont need to carpool! ;-) ) ProvoGirl SerpentMoon Sherri09 (Boulder) Skybird TequilaGirl (Castle Rock) TreeBarb (near Ft. Lupton) If somebody is finding this for the first time, its not too late to decide to come! As long at theres still time to send your email address to Angel and get a reply from her, its not too late! So even the day before the swap should work, but by the actual day of the swap everybody is going to be too busy to be responding to anybody! In the past we havent done this, but Angel has said that she has a grill (two actually, one gas, one charcoal) that we can use, so if anybody wants to bring something to be grilled, that works too this time. Just be sure its something that wouldnt take too long to heat since eating is the first thing we do! ~~~ HERE, AGAIN, IS ALL THE BASIC INFORMATION! ~~~ The swap is on Sunday, May 23rd at 11:00, at Angels in Longmont! ~~ When you arrive there will be an area designated to put the plants youve brought, with a separate place to put the plants you have earmarked for someoneand, of course, there will be somewhere to put the food! \[Just a hint for those of you who have earmarked plants! Ive found it works well to write the screen name of the person on a paper bag and put the plants in the bag. If theres more than one bag for someone I just write "1 of 2" on it to be sure nothing gets missed! It makes it easy for everyone to find the ones that are for them, and its easier to carry the bags than to carry a bunch of separate pots. Small boxes would work too!\] ~~ There will be a table with a sign in sheet, and its fun to keep track of who actually showed up, so please be sure you sign in! There will also be name tags on the sign in table, so please make a name tag for yourself (and your guests) which includes your RMG screen nameso we know who you are! \[Put YOUR screen name on your guests tags tooso we know who they belong to!!!\] ~~ We start the swap with the pot luck! Your dish can be absolutely anything! Hot dishes, cold dishes, appetizers/finger foods, salads, sweetsanything you think others would enjoy! Homemade dishes, if you have time, are always good! Please bring a serving spoon if it will be needed for your dish, and also please make some provision for it to be covereda lid if its that type of dish, or plastic wrap, or whatever. One other request! I love sweets, so I definitely dont want to put too much of a damper on the dessert type things, but at a couple of the swaps we seemed to wind up with mostly sweets, so if youre trying to decide between that or something else, lean toward the something else! ~~ After eating and talking while we eatand perusing the plants that are availablewe have everybody who has plants earmarked for others make sure the plants get to the right people. This also happens to some extent during the arriving/eating/talking/perusing part! ~~~ Then we do the actual swapping! Before we start picking plants, well once again have everybody who brought plants briefly tell what they brought so everyone knows whats available to help them decide what theyd like to have. Then everyone draws a number for the first and second rounds of picking plantsthat way everyone has a pretty good chance to get the one or two things they want the most. Then we open it up to just walking around and picking out whatever anyone wantsthe free\-for\-all part! ~~ Please be sure the plants you bring are labeled one way or another! Either stick a tag in the pot, or staple a piece of paper with the name onto the pot, or just write the name of the plant on the pot with a marker or crayonat past swaps some people have made up adhesive labels with the plant name and basic information and stuck them on the potsI make up little strips of paper on the computer with the info and include one with each plant. Anything to ensure the person getting the plant will know what they have when they get home. Its easy to think youre gonna remember the names of the things you take homeand even easier to forget them by the time you do get home!!! ~~ ANDour primary RMG plant swap rule! Nobody needs to have any plants to be welcome at the swap! There are always plenty of plants to go around (I have just over 200 myself!), and we get together as much to swap gardening talk and friendship as to swap plantsso come regardless of how much you do or don't have to bring! ~~~ Please plan to thoroughly water the plants youre bringing the DAY BEFORE the swap so theyll have time to drain well enough to be easy to transport, yet be wet enough to not be wilting at the swap or while people are taking them home! One more thing! Its a really good idea to bring a box/tray or two to carry your booty back home in! If the plants youre bringing are in something, dont let anybody else snag it, and you can use that to refill with the new goodies! If there are any questions, NOW is the time to be asking them! Pray for good weatherand NO wind! See you all soon, Skybird

Well, I'm not thinking of peonies, I'm thinking of TREE peonies, which are a different plant supposedly, and which are usually rated as good for zones 2 through 9. I talked to one of the growers I was thinking of using today and she said that they bloom as long as you have at least 30 days around 40 degrees. In Austin, we only get about 11 days that low in an average year. I've researched it quite a bit, and a lot of the information is conflicting. Some say that you can grow them just fine in containers in warm areas, I guess because being above ground lets them cool off more than being planted in the ground. Also, I read that the trick is to force them to go dormant in the fall by cutting off all the leaves in November, by which point they would have dropped naturally in most locations. I did ask on the peony board also, but haven't heard, so I was hoping somebody who had actually tried it would be able to chime in. If not, I'll probably try one plant this year and see what results I get. The people at the nurseries around here had never heard of tree peonies, by the way. They are a rare-ish plant, so that could be because they just don't grow here, or because they are so uncommon.