I wanted to say a great big Thank You to Stardust !!!! The swap was a success. She did a lot a work to pull this together. The hall was great and easy to find. There were tables and chairs inside for a great lunch of all the food everyone brought. Of course, all nicely decorated! It was fun to see all the door prizes that were all wrapped. And there was a very nice silent auction of books and home decorations. Then, on to the swap. Names were chosen at random to start the rounds and everyone redeemed the tickets they were given for the plants they brought in exchange the the plants they wanted. It took many rounds to use up the tickets. We sure had lots and lots of plants. Stardust brought about 60 plants. Wow! So, everyone got to select a "bonus" plant after they ran out of tickets. So, thank you so much. This was a lot of work and turned out to be a lot of fun. Also, thank you to Stardust's long time & very good neighbor friend who helped the whole day and made the refreshments. I can see that you did a lot of planning, too. Here are the lucky guys who came home with me::::

I find columbine does best when directly sowed where I want it to grow. Some other plants I grow in part shade in the types of conditions you describe with high, dappled shade and a few hours of sun include some clematis (vines - not all will do well in shade, so Google clematis for shade or go to Clematis on the Web and browse), hosta (many have nice flowers in lavender or white as well as lovely leaves), astilbe, siberian iris, and Actea (often listed as Cimicifuga, its old name.) Think about interesting and varied leaves (either color, shape or size) as well as flowers. For instance, the Actea/Cimicifuga has TALL wands of white to pale pink flowers now, but much of the season its interest is provided by somewhat ferny-looking dark purple leaves. (It also can be bought with green leaves.) You could grow climbing hydrangea up a large tree trunk - it doesn't seem to hurt the trees at all. You may be able to get a rooted cutting at a plant swap since it seems to root reasonably easily. Hydrangeas are woody vines or shrubs, not perennials, but the shrubby hydrangea paniculata and arborescens varieties, like Annabelle, Little Lamb, Pinky Winky, Pink Diamond, Limelight, etc. and the hardy Hydrangea macrophyllas like All Summer Beauty and Endless Summer bloom for me quite well all summer and are fully hardy here on the border of zone 4. They will tolerate quite a bit of shade and as long as they get a few hours of sun I've found that they will bloom. I'll also suggest that you visit good local nurseries or ornamental gardens or an arboretum periodically through the spring, summer and fall to see what is blooming and/or looking nice in their shade sections. Take notes, maybe buy some plants at the fall sales if your budget will allow and you have someplace to put them. Here is a link that might be useful: Clematis on the Web

I went to Philadelphia this year - it blew Boston's show away. And I liked that the vendors all were at least related to flowers and/or gardening - no fridge's and washing machines on display like Boston has had the past few years. I know someone who's a vender who dropped out of the NE Flower Show about 5 years ago. They say it was financial shenanigans that killed the show. Mass Hort. made it very hard for vendors, it was very expensive for them and it just wasn't worth it any longer. They go to the Philly show every year and even with hiring a truck to transport everything, staying in hotels for almost 2 weeks considering the time it takes to set up, then break down a display, it was a better deal than NE ever was for them. I've been going for years and the past few years it's been pathetic. I still always went just for that fix in March when you just can't stand it anymore and need to smell the dirt and the mulch, but the displays were no better than what you'd see at your local garden centers. The same old tired plants used over and over and over again. I would like to see it return, but it needs some new blood in there to make it interesting again and get some focus on the plant variety. They jumped the shark the year they had the Disney displays. If I want to look at carnations dyed fake colors I can get them at the local florist. I want some HORTICULTURE from Mass. Horticulture!! Lisa

OOPS TANSY I SO SORRY!!!! UPDATE SO now as it stands we are here: Ok so far it looks like we possibly have: No.-participant-interested in 01. ME (everything) 02. sguanzon-Sue (??) 03. katybear826- Katy (??) 04. MoonFire-Dianne (??) 05. hementia8- (veggies) 06. gmom2-6boys-gmom maybe(???) 07. tansy_mi_zn5-Tansy (??) 08. debbya- Deb (??) 09. txgardeningmama- Kim (??) This is starting to look a lot better. I am hoping this RR will not have the issues others have had, I posted NO COMMON seeds in the guidelines but I know there are some who are not sure what's common and what isn't which is also why I posted if you are not sure then please ask. At the moment I see a few long time members of GW I know they are looking for uncommon items. I also am sure they will have wonderful seeds to put add. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THE GUIDELINES POSTED FOR THIS SWAP REMEMBER IF YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT SOMETHING PLEASE ASK. THANKS EVERYONE! If everyone adheres to these this will be a fantastic swap and all should come out with some nice seeds for next season. PLEASE READ: I had a request to do the veggies separate IF we have a small group I will do this. For this reason I need to know if you are interested in only flowers, veggies, or both. IF we do it into 2 packages we will be using the bubbly envies from the USPS mentioned above in a previous post, PLEASE use the link on that post to order them. Not all my veggies are coming in like they were supposed to so I will be missing some of the ones I wanted to put in. So disappointed with this! Thanks everyone I have to go back and check my email I have to make sure everyone has sent me their information. :) Aqua