Hello all, Thanks for a fabulous swap. I owe Matt a special dinner or three for loading the truck and staking out the spot! I am so excited about all my swaps, and the great scores from the Gambler's Circle. I am such a plant-a-holic! Even after the swap, a great visit with Sean & Bev - who gave me a bounty of plants, (I'm her backup / insurance garden) I was still sorely tempted to stop on the way home from Vienna at a roadside plant sale of fabulous blooming sweet williams... Matt saved me from that danger, but only just. I think I may need to get a fourth arbour to hold all the climbing vines from last year and this year :-) This is the first time I've smelled my vining honeysuckle from a trade a couple years ago, it's is the middle of the Friendship garden out front, and is usually tough to get to for all the tall plants. There aren't as many self seeded sunflowers this year, so I was able to tiptoe over there. My garden is so much richer and fuller for all the trades and happy memories of friends who have given them to me. Thanks again, like Ross I am already looking forward to next year's swap. But I am rather daunted at the task ahead of planting all my bounty! Thank goodness a large number of boring iris and black eyed susans are getting torn out this year, that'll make some easy room for newbies. Cheers, Heather / BlueIris3 Hope to see you all at Signet's picnic in daylily season.

I think I have too many things growing and blooming to even list them! My snow crocus that have been in the ground for years are already finished blooming--sometimes they get a second flush and I hope they do this year! I got 250 “new” snow crocus at the VanEngelen 40% off sale in fall and the 125 I put around the pine in my front yard the end of January started blooming about a month ago, more every day, with a slight hesitation during our last storm. Another batch I put in the backyard mid-February is starting to bloom and the other batch is up but not blooming yet. Other bulbs! Ipheion and Chionodoxa planted last year blooming. Eranthus blooming, but the one batch the squirrels have access to “lost” most of the flowers! The Squirrels seem to consider the flowers a delicacy for breakfast! Rock garden iris, Iris reticulata, the blue ones are done but expecting other colors to bloom yet. Geranium tuberosum that never came up at all last year--thought they had rotted in the ground, are coming up this year! My “old” grape hyacinths are budding and starting to open. Last year’s ‘Valerie Finnis’ grape hyacinths (sky blue) are growing like crazy but no buds yet. A species tulip, Tulip dasystemon from last year, a few are up but it looks like many of them may have rotted in the ground over winter--gives me somewhere else to plant some new bulbs this fall! The new Hyacinths I planted over winter aren’t up yet, but my old ones are up and all with buds or a couple of them wide open already--I love the scent of hyacinths! The daffodils, ‘Faith’, which are supposed to be pink, are blooming but it’s most definitely not pink! Another “pink” I got last year had one bud when we got the last snow and it’s head broke over so I brought it in and stuck it in water but I think it had been too long before I got it in water and it did kind of open but didn’t look very good! It’s not pink either--I think I’m gonna give up on getting a pink daf! A few of my old yellow dafs are blooming---cut a couple of them before the last snow so they wouldn’t break off and had them in the house for a week--which was really nice when it was snowing outside! The ‘Ronaldo’ tulips I got from TreeBarb are way up and budding. Lilies ‘Monte Negro’ and ‘Red Electric’ I got from Barb last year are up and multiplying like crazy! Four varieties of German Iris are growing like crazy but too early for buds. The ‘Star of Persia’ Allium from a swap long ago is a foot tall but not budding yet. Regular perennials! The Rockcress, both Arabis and Aubrietia are blooming. Pasque flower, Pulsatilla, three blooming--P. vulgaris in white and purple, and the purple P. patens. Primroses starting to bloom, Johnny-jump-ups starting to bloom ALL over the place, and sweet violets blooming--at least the pink ones are! My orange creeping wallflower, Erysimum, is budding, along with ‘Waterperry’ creeping Veronica and also creeping Veronica repens, and all the Ajugas are starting to bud. Not budding/blooming! Everything else except the “late” things (like hosta) are up anywhere from just a couple inches to about a foot. Several varieties of daylilies, small but up and looking good. My two dark foliage upright sedums are 6-8” tall already. All my different hen & chicks are in the process of turning their wonderful spring colors! Old fashioned bleeding heart well up but not budding yet, and I’m glad for that ‘cause for something that likes to come up and bloom so early they sure don’t seem to understand the concept that they’re not supposed to freeze when it gets “too” cold and I’ve had the buds/foliage freeze a couple times with late freezes! I’m jumping up and down about the ‘Looking Glass’ Brunnera I got from Dryad58 at the Spring ’09 swap--this is the first year it’s really noticeably getting bigger (all about that Heavy Clay I have!) and I think it’s gonna look REALLY good this summer! Wonderful foliage plant--with flowers, albeit small flowers! I have three seedling columbine from a ProvoGirl swap plant that are looking really good this year (the original plant died) and I can’t wait to see what color they are! And then! My “regular” yellow iceplant died off the whole way this winter--and that’s ok with me! Something else will go there! Right now it looks like most of my ‘Black Scallop’ Ajuga may have died, but some of it is still alive so I’ll just get the patch going again! And I’m not sure, but it looks like my Mesa Verde iceplant may have died off completely! Will know for sure in a month and then will need to decide if I want to replace it or not if I’m right! And my ‘Tricolor’ sage died! Not too surprised! It was about 7 years old and I think it had Alzheimer’s! No seeds! Didn’t get winter sowing done and then decided to skip it all together this year since I’ll be gone a while in May and there wouldn’t be anybody to take care of them. And, had been planning to get my tomatoes and eggplants sown on the first, so I’m a few days late! As usual! I spent three hours yesterday out turning over my tomato/veggie garden for the first time this year (that means it’s badly packed down!), and starting to turn in bags and bags of whole leaves from last fall. With all the wintertime vermi-procreating I’ve had going on under the leaf bags for the last few years the worms are “thick” out there now! (And after turning in all the whole leaves last spring the “soil” is FINALLY starting to actually get better!) But the first “row” I dig is immediately along the fence and it’s infested with cottonwood roots so it takes forever to get that 18” done and it’s incredibly hard work since I dig down as far as I can--and even slightly under the neighbor’s fence, to cut the roots off as far down/back as I can! And after getting that started I “reset” all the pieces of flagstone that are my path thru that part of the garden and redid another big stepping stone on the other side of the yard in the perennials. Boy, was I tired and sore last nite! And I’ll be heading back out there today to do some more! Takes a while to get the muscles back in shape after sitting inside all winter! And if predictions hold up we could get a GOOD storm on Monday/Tuesday! Yesterday one of the weathermen said we could get up to two feet in the mountains and up to two inches of precip down here! Finger’s crossed! Time to head back outside, Skybird This post was edited by skybird on Fri, Apr 5, 13 at 14:50

Hi all, I was hoping to get the swap pictures downloaded so I could post them before I leave on my vacation tomorrow---but it's just not gonna happen! It's bedtime, and I'm still not ready to go! I haven't even had time to look at them myself yet! Jennifer, I know I got your behind in one of them, but don't worry, I'll crop it before I post it!! I'll post them when I get back, probably toward the end of the week by the time I find time to download them, so watch for a separate swap pictures post late next week. Meteor, I'm sorry you weren't able to make it. Hope you're starting to feel better by now. We'll be looking for you at next year's swaps, even if you wind up temporarily without a garden. Maybe even more so if that happens, so you can at least get a gardening talk fix if you can't be doing the actual gardening! And Azura, I'm so sorry you couldn't come too. I hope things start looking up for you soon. It's no fun to be out of commission--as I well know. Keep thinking spring swap--we'll all be looking for you there. Hope to see you there too, Billie! :-) Gotta go for now! I'm heading back out into the WILD! Skybird

I hope this isn't too late. Here is my wishlist. I'd chat more but black friday is calling and I must answer! 1. Heuchera 2. Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra) 3. Agastache - orange, purple, and reds 4. Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema) 5. Pipevine 6. Canna - "Australia", "Stuttgart", "Pretoria" 7. Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) 8. Caryopteris 9. Corydalis - blue flowering types Redbud - "Rising Sun" Geranium (Pelargonium) - "Vancouver Centennial" Ornamental Pepper - "Sangria" Creeping Mazus (Mazus reptans) Mamou Bean (Erythrina herbacea) Tall Bearded Iris Dahlia Coleus - odd colors and/or foliage shape, solid reds Clematis Bugbane/Black Snakeroot (Cimicifuga) Basil - Lime, cinnamon, colored, or miniature varieties Coneflower Begonia - any but the ones commonly used for annual beddings Asiatic Lily Toad Lily (Tricyrtis) Peruvian Lily (Alstroemeria) False Spirea (Sorbaria sorbifolia) - "Sem" Stonecrop (Sedum) Caladium Mini Groundcovers - ajuga, sagina, leptinella, mazus, etc. Flowering shade perennials I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Jeff