Ohh, you all are fascinating! I wish the catalpa 'Aurea' at Forest Farm was much cheaper and I'd place my first order! I did pick up a ribes odoratum at a garage sale/plant sale last year. It's 4 ft tall and was $2.- Yeah I'm going back to find more values in the spring! I did take advantage of a co-op again this year with woodthrush (GW) and bought over 50 lilium bulbs for about $70 Orienpets are lovely!If they do the right plants at the co-op for Walter's Gardens I will put in an order for perennials too. I also placed my first order with Thomson Morgan seed as they had a $10 and NO minimum order offer with the last catalog. I also purchased seed from Valueseeds? seeds very cheap, and recommended at the Tom Clothier website. I am hoping to buy unusual aroids from lariann's personal collection this spring(GW) Jackson and Perkins has a nice metal trellis set I'm eyeing.... And if the stinkin'!! snow clears up by then( 10 more inches today!) I'd like to drive all the way to Madison this weekend for the giant garden expo and see what all the vendors have to offer. Tickets are $6-7 for a day of talks and all. It would be a nice break to think green instead of white...... Karen

The blue mist spirea, if it is the one properly called Caryopteris clandonensis, is more blue than purple to me - it comes in yellow-ish-leaved cultivars as well, one of which is 'Worcester Gold', flowering in late summer. C. incana is commonly called blue spirea - it is taller and has lavender blue flowers. Clethra is another one to look for - it has summer flowers, shades of white or pink depending on the cultivar - yellow fall foliage. If hardy where you are, Itea has white summer flowers with some cultivars selected for fall colors. Both, esp. in damp soil, will sucker, but the suckers are easily pulled and cut off close to the base of the parent if noticed early on - toss them or pot them up for placement elsewhere or as a gift. If hardy for you, the Knock-Out roses get taller than the Home-runs do - the 'Rainbow' cultivar seems not to be as disease-free as the others - 3 pinks (1 double, new this year, 2 singles, pale and dark) and 2 reds (1 single, 1 double). Cut to knee high in early spring, feed monthly (or not at all, depending on soil, but they are better-flowered with some fertilizer) and water - they will grow to 3-5' in the summer and need little or no dead-heading, depending on how close to them you get - if very visible, then dead-head, if at a distance, don't bother, they flower anyway. Go to various public venues (parks, zoo, arboretum, college campus, etc.) around your area, and you can see what grows well in your area - much of what I can grow here won't do for you, and vice versa. Also, look at the catalogue from High Country Gardens, out of Santa Fe - they will have lots of plants (while mostly perennials, they do have a number of shrubs) that will be good in your climate.

Its a big world and everybody on it has a different viewpoint - all of them valid. When I take a deep view of the issue it has parallels to other nature/environmental conflicts and the ethics of ownership of art and artifacts. When I was younger I collected a lot in the wild, both plants and animals. Over time my poor track record for success calmed down my wish to grow everything. Now I only collect something that I really think I can grow. I prefer to take cuttings and whereas in the past I would take an obscene amount of cuttings, now I only take a few (you could call this pruning!). I try not to tell other people what they should do or not do, because I believe they will eventually slow down on the collecting. It is rare for a person to be a rabid collector for years on years. Another aspect of it to consider - the only people that will care enough to step in and do the work involved with saving an endagered species of plant will be gardeners. Those gardeners will have to gain those skills somewhere. When disaster is looming, it will be a gardener that saves the rare plants in his/her neighborhood - other people will be busy saving something else. Way back when I worked at the zoo I used to work in the bird department taking care of a large walk through aviary filled with South American birds. One day while out at lunch with some ex-staff I ran across my old highschool biology teacher who told me about her teenage son's pet parrot that he had recieved from the zoo. Immediately my group figured out that the kid had stolen the parrot but I kept my cool and let her tell me the false story he had told her. Later they were furious that I did nothing or said nothing to her but in my mind that parrot was in a much better place being cared for by this kid. Everyone thinks that because its the "zoo" that all the animals are expertly cared for but this was an orphaned bird that lived in isolation and neglect in windowless shed for years before someone stepped forward and suggested we re-introduce it to the parent flock. By then it was heavily imprinted on people and would fly up to anyone walking through the aviary. The flock treated it poorly, it was never going to fit in. The zoo didn't have the time to take adequate care of it. Allowing it to be kept by the teenager was actually better for the bird - even though the kid was a thief. So it all depends on how you want to look at it.

Oops sorry my intent was not to confuse or to incite "wonton lust" it was just pure ignorance. Mindy its good that you brought this up because I think I added the same frustration and confusion to the plant swap. Think I am going to move on to Mid Atlantic.just a square peg. Katy Mindy, Answering this one is like choosing which one of my three daughters is my favorite, which like every good parent I say is impossible. Then again if I had to chose right now as of this moment it is my oldest who is coming home next weekend for a non stop marathon in Excell instruction in the hopes that I will be able to combine records from junk drawers, sweat shirt pockets, ect. and put together a concise record and maintenance plan for the yard that extends beyond the present "Oh you mean the big bush in the front yard." Oops once again I digress here is my list of favorite shrubs as of November 6 at 10:00am. 1. Myrica pensylvanica I have fallen for the quiet elegance of this plant Zone (2) 3 to 6 suspect to 8 2. Ilex glabra compacta & shamrock I love how these shrubs work well in both full sun formal situations as well as shady woodland. Zone 4 to 9 3. Ilex koehne Wirt L Winn beautiful large leaf and great berries Zone 7 to 9 4. Ilex pendunculosa Zone 5 5. Ilex meserveae all blues??, and Nellie R Steven- Zone 6-9 6. Ilex Rock Garden Zone 6 - 9 7. Spirea pink flowering - what a color work horse Zone 4-7 (8) 8. Hydrangea macrophylia Altona great depth of color vivid blue/purple, good fall color, nice leaf, consistent bloomer. *** 9. Hydrangrea macrophylia Niedersachen great color and delicate petals. *** 10. Hydrangea Lilacina nice lacecap lavender petal blue center with added interest of great fall leaf color *** 11. Hydrangea quercifolia both Queen and Snowflake Zone 5-9 12. Vaccinium corymbosum Blue Ray Zone 3 to 7 (8) 13. Vaccinium angustifolium Zone 2 to 5 (6) 14. Clerodendrum trichotomum Zone 6 (7) to 9 15. Callicarpa japonica Luxurians just when I think all of the excitement has left the garden. Zone 5 to 8 16. Viburnum nudum Wintethur great fall color 17. Viburnum burkwoodii really formal shrub and the flower scent in spring is intoxicating Zone 4 to 8 18. Viburnum setigerum Aurantiacum wow the orange peach berries in the fall next to the burgundy leaves of Hydrangea Quercifolia. Zone 5 to 7 19. Chamaecyparis obtuse Nana Zone 4 to 8 20. azeala Polly Hills Yuka 0 to minus 10 degrees 21. Rhododendron Cunninghams White re-blooms in the fall - ? Check with your local nursery This is a great thread I have already added too many selections to my spring wish list. I am particularly lusting after the swamp azalea. Katy *** I grow more varieties of hydrangea macrophylia than I want to admit to either my DH or you and considered to the best of my ability what I thought was a special macrophylia that to date has been under used in New England.