I ordered last year: *Cinderella fairy tale - this has become really big and wide and flowered best in spring with sporadic repeats after that. * Pomponella- is growing quite strongly and flowers constantly *Flamingo- I like it better than Bride's Dream or Royal Highness. I think it's the perfect bride's bouquet flower. All the bareroot plants were HUGE. I advise any west coast gardeners to order in Fall because they don't always have enough orders to send out a shipment to the west coast in Jan-Feb. at least that was what they told me last year. Also, there are issues with cold weather in the East spoiling the plants during transit. Then you might have to wait until later when it's past the optimum planting time. I find my bareroots don't take off as well here in April as they did in the first months of the year. The shipping is expensive, but wait until you see your plants!

I have no idea if all of mine are good butterfly plants, but I ordered them because I think they're so pretty in the pictures on the website I was looking at. I ordered mine from swallowtailgardenseeds.com Band of Nobles Mixed Lupine Little Treasure Deep Rose Wall Rock Cress Arizona Sun Gaillardia Southern Charm Verbascum Sorbet Black Delight Viola Blue Angel Viscaria Serena Mix Angelonia Marine Heliotrope Bravo Mix Brachycome House's Hybrids Scabiosa Moon Vine I want to also order a few from Prairie Moon Nursery... New Jersey Tea Wild Lupine I have to look through their selection and see if there's anything else I might want. I ordered those two things two other times and they've proven difficult for me to start here. The New Jersey Tea is an extremely slow grower. Not all of mine made it through last winter and I ended up with 7 out of the 11 that I planted. Last year our weather was so hot and dry that they didn't do so well and so I don't know if I'll end up with any out of the 2 dozen that I planted in the late summer. They weren't more than about an inch high. I don't know what I can do differently for those plants, but I'm going to add even more sand and leaves to my lupine section and see if that helps. I have lots of sand, leaves and potting soil in the Russell lupine bed that I've had here for a couple of years and they're doing great. You'd think that the wild ones would do better than the Russell ones, but they haven't so far for me even though I thought that I already had enough things added to the soil. I am going to winter sow all of my seeds (started but not done) since I've had great success with it over the past several years since I started doing it. I just have to not go crazy and start about 100 jugs of plants like I did before; it's so much to plant and it takes me until the end of the summer to plant all of them. I always love looking at the seed/plant catalogs this time of the year. I can kind of transport myself out of this awful winter. Cathy

Well, I got Vandenberg's for Spring 2006. I bought a bunch of bulbs from them this spring- great prices and really nice lady on the phone. I guess the other catalogs are all for fall orders of tulips, daffs, and other things- I was thinking "next year" because that's when the flowers would be blooming. I haven't had time to look at them but got fall catalogs from McClure & Zimmerman, Wayside ('course they send one almost every week-no wonder they are so expensive), Park, and some others.

Sitting around after stuffing myself . . . lookin' for seed sources. Hey, not all those HPS varieties come in 1,000 seed pkts!!! With enuf squeezing and succession planting, I should be able to try 3 or 4 more varieties next year! Here's a new-to-me herb seed company! Maybe others have seen this before if you've an interest in off-the-beaten-path herbs. Can't say I'll necessarily be ordering from 'em or that I'd choose 'em over Richters but since they offer a wide selection, are located just a few miles from where I grew up in southern Oregon, and HOPING that they do a good job for their customers - - I've put the link below. You should know that I'm always prepared for the seed companies to do-me-dirt but they never really have (and for this I'm very thankful on this Thanksgiving Day). That list I posted on Azura's thread last month of 17 sources in 2007 may be the reason, but I don't think so. Even tho' I've been ordering from some of these companies for decades - many times, individual orders are for $10 or $20. Perhaps, the customer they have in mind when they put some of these things together - is me! I've got a hat that I had made - "Nub Seed Company, I don't see why not!" I tell people that this is the way I think seed companies should operate & it is the opposite of the "Snub Seed Company, I don't see why I should." Anyway, the entire enterprise gives me a good deal of pleasure. I've been involved since I was a kid. digitS' Here is a link that might be useful: Horizon Seed