Albert, I know that Reno-Sparks' average final frost date is around May 15, but in the outlying areas, in exposed and higher-elevation areas, I'd go with May 30. My working hardy-plant date here in the "banana belt" of older Sparks is April 1, semi-hardies go in starting April 15, and tender plants go in between May 1 and May 30 depending on how brave I feel and how much row cover I have handy for covering things when we get the gazillionth late freeze for the year. Lisa

It *was* a great swap. :-) I had many plants to put in the ground on Sunday! And those lovely ginger lilies -- oh my gosh, what great plants! I have one blooming in the house right now. I plan to give one of them to my mom-in-law -- she will love it in her new solarium. Thanks so much to Renee and Jan for their hard work. I thought the program was excellent and showed a lot of hard work had gone into it. Really great. And to all my Garden web buddies who made it -- thank you for the plants, the great food, and most of all, the fellowship. :-) I'll be back next spring, no doubt trying to unload all the plants I neglected to dig up before the Fall swap. With that, I would just like to close with a few things: Pat -- The Chaste tree is Vitex Agnus Castus. :-) Lessons Learned: * Not bringing the hubby's new truck == VERY good thing. As it was I looked like a florist driving back to Madison in my poor little Honda :-) * You can NOT trust Brug fanatics alone with your bundles. When I got home, every bag I unloaded had little sticks tucked in them by the Brug fairy! LOL * The best part of the swap is the amazing, friendly people (but this wasn't something new I learned -- I already knew that. ) Bless you all! Photos from the UK trip will be coming soon, I promise.

I love hearing more about everyone. Here is my story: I'm in NY, fiance is in PA and I agreed to move there only if we found the perfect place to live. We originally intended to buy, but we couldn't find anything. We saw a house that had a view we adored but we hated the house, and a bunch of houses we loved but we hated the lots. We found a lot next door to the house that had the view we loved, and got into contact with the builder who built the houses we loved. We made an offer on the lot but the people were insane. They raised the asking price of the lot by $10,000 over what it was listed at (it had sat on the market for almost two years already) and they demanded closing in 30 days with no contingencies for inspection of property, etc. We said no. They came back and agreed that they'd be more reasonable. We made another offer. Our realtor drew up a contract and I went back home. We got a call that they had given back our "signed" contract with all our contingencies crossed off and the price an extra $10,000 over the original extra $10,000. We walked away from that- nuts! Went up there again the next week. We looked at EVERY LOT within our price range. The realtor encouraged us to go and see a lot that was above our budget that had been on the market for over a year (The neighborhood is on the site of where this old historic hotel sat, and there are pretty extensive deed restrictions regarding house size, finishes, etc. which scared a lot of people away). We went and immediately fell absolutely in love. The lot is 5 acres and in the middle of a neighborhood with 200 acres of land, only 54 of which will be developed and only a total of 16 families/houses. There is a pond across from our house and the back of our house overlooks woods and a horse farm in the distance. There is a YMCA camp very nearby and we have access to the trails through an easement in our back yard. There are chainsaw carvings at random throughout the neighborhood and natural springs and old spring houses. It is really, really idyllic! We made an offer on the land without even walking up the hill because it was so steep and wooded (contingent on builder approval though!) They came back with a counter offer that was only $3000 lower than their starting point but then they countered their own counter. When we first went with the builder, we were so scared because he was walking up this hill saying that there was no way anyone could build on such a steep hill. But, then it flattened out and made this perfect spot for the house. And there we were... We broke ground in October. Scheduled to be done in December. Pond that we can see from the front of the house: Random wood carving at the corner of the street, decorated for the holidays: See our steep hill! Our land the very first day we saw it:

Neat story about old Ephraim, Ellen! My little stucco cottage, where we live now in Alabama, was built in 1950 by a son for his mama. The son lived a street over in one direction, and there are a series of fence gates through my neighbor's back yard, and then through MY back yard too. I asked the little lady who lives behind me what that gate in the fence between us was for. She said that she and the other mama were good friends and visited a lot, and that gate meant GOOD NEIGHBORS. So when we bought a strip of her lot and installed a new fence, I made sure to put a new and wider gate in it. Sad to say, the son who built our house recently had a stroke and is not expected to be in his home much longer. Our river house that was destroyed in Katrina sat on land which had a very long and detailed title abstract which came with it. Going back to the folks who came to the region in the mid 1750s. I saved that title abstract from the storm debris and keep it as a reminder of the history connected to any piece of land, if we only knew about it. Mobile was settled by the French in 1711, but that piece of geography where our house was, named DOG RIVER or RIVIERE DU CHIEN, was named that because they heard so many "dogs" barking, and discovered those "dogs" were instead ALLIGATORS. Yep, a very swampy and low piece of land. I just love riverside living.