Mark - is this what you are looking for? I believe that they will list the remaining 15 titles in upcoming issues. BIG ANNIVERSARIES SEEM TO CALL FOR LIST. After all, it's not every day that a magazine passes the century mark, and compiling our own "top 100" seemed an appropriate way to celebrate. Just as important, it allows us to showcase some of the best aspects of American gardening. To keep the list manageable, we decided to group our choices into five categories: classic gardening books; native perennials, shrubs, and trees; and horticultural organizations. (There will eventually be 20 choices in each category.) Why these five? Books, because they're both a repository of precious, hard-won knowledge and a mirror of our gardening passions and aspirations. Native perennials, shrubs, and trees because North America is home to some of the most outstanding ornamental plants on earth. And horticultural organizations because they connect gardeners with one another by providing a vital forum for the sharing of information and experience. Here, and in our next four issues, we'll present 20 items from the Horticulture 100. We hope that you'll find things that will stimulate, challenge, and delight you. Above all, we hope it will remind you of how much there is to discover and treasure in our common gardening heritage. Books Liberty Hyde Bailey, Standard Encyclopedia of Horticulture (Macmillan, 1914-17; 6 vols.; out of print) In this monumental work, Bailey, the preeminent American horticulturist of the early 20th century, aimed to "account for the plants horticulturally grown within its territory which are now the subjects of living interest or likely to be introduced, to discuss the best practices in the growing of the staple flower and fruit and vegetable crops, to depict the horticultural capabilities of the states and provinces, to indicate the literature of the field, and incidentally to portray briefly the lives of the former men and women who have attained to a large or a national reputation in horticultural pursuits." That a gardener today can still glean much useful knowledge from these volumes, more than eight decades after their publication, is a measure of their success. Claude A. Barr, Jewels of the Plains: Wildflowers of the Great Plains, Grasslands and Hills (University of Minnesota Press, 1983; out of print) It's a delightful reminder of the diversity of American garden literature that one of its classics should have been written by a South Dakota cattle rancher. Barr, who also ran a nursery at his Prairie Gem Ranch, combined a deep love of prairie plants with a botanist's knowledge and a warm, graceful prose style to produce this masterwork, which appeared just after his death at the age of 94. That the book has been allowed to go out of print is nothing short of a scandal. Geoffrey Charlesworth, The Opinionated Gardener (David R. Godine, 1988; out of print) Take equal measures of dry, acerbic wit, sharp intelligence, consummate plantsmanship, and philosophical speculation, and you get the uniquely satisfying blend contained in The Opinionated Gardener, written by one of America's most respected rock gardeners. Although there's much here about alpine plants, there's al so much that is universal: "Being happy is dirt under your finger nails, wearing old clothes, having a good idea get better the longer you work at it, starting a new bed, giving plants away, and listening to rain." Thomas D. Church, Gardens Are for People: How to Plan for Outdoor Living (Reinhold, 1955; 3rd ed. University of California Press, 1995; in print) Although he was one of the most influential modernist landscape architects of the mid-20th century, Church refused to cloak his profession in a fog of professional mystification. "Landscaping," he writes in this, his best-known book, "is not a complex and difficult art to be practiced only by high priests. It is logical, down-to-earth, and aimed at making your plot of ground produce exactly what you want and need from it."

Yes, Marcia is correct. I do have my own perennial sales. My girlfriend and I have had a garage sale on the last Friday and Saturday of May each year for the past 16 years. Over the years, I ended up having less and less stuff but more and more perennials that needed dividing. This year I only sold $8.00 worth of stuff and the rest was all perennials. I divide different perennials each year. You never know what you will find when you come to my sale. I also have a table at the Brandon Farmer's Market with perennials, fruit from our acreage and excess veggies. All monies I make from the sales go back into purchasing perennials for the flowerbeds...and veggie seeds, annuals, planters, tools, a garden shed, lawn seed, etc etc. As for the topic of this thread...Our garden club has a sale each spring...the week following my garage sale (as they wish to use my price tags and perennial pictures). So, this year it is taking place this coming Friday and Saturday. You never know what will come to the sale as a donation. The best thing that came as a donation was a beautiful heuchera seedling that I was privleged to purchase. It has really come into its own lately. Brenda

I just happened to come across this Bir, Dick. Big flowers from bigleaf hydrangeas. In Fine Gardening, no. 92, (July-August 2003), p. 44-48. It was here. (I wish that library were down the road from me.) Hay.

Huh. I'm really surprised it would be more popular up here since it's so often California focused (which makes sense given population/territory size differences between there and here). I love it (I just got this year's experimental Mimulus hybrids from their new plant introduction program) and have purchased a few back issues on Ebay so that might be a good resource for you if you can't find a good trade. Good luck! :) Here is a link that might be useful: Pacific Horticulture on ebay