I doubt I know anything that you all don't, but in what is closing in on one year of gardening, I have learned: 1. Gardening is insanely addictive. I planted some red annual salvia and white petunias to cover and a stump. They looked so pretty, I was hooked! 2. Assume nothing! I live in extreme south Georgia. We don't have killing frosts, right? WRONG! I still had about half dozen or so of those original salvia growing and blooming in their bed. They looked gorgeous, until about a week ago. Now, they are brown goo. 3. Not everything likes to be heavily fertilized. Another member here (debbiep) lives right up the road from me. Over the summer she helped feed my growing addiction. She gave me two little tomato plants. I put them in my little, tiny edibles bed, dumped a ton of my guinea pig mulch on them and crossed my fingers. In short order, I had two huge, gorgeous plants, and one tomato between the two of them. :P 4. Irises are my absolute favorite flower, and despite all the gorgeous, diverse varieties that exist, there is no real red. 5. Your significant other may not always appreciate or even understand your passion. After I announced my plans to expand my UGA beds to include an homage to the other 11 SEC schools, my husband told me I was $E&(#W$&(# (insert your own pejorative) nuts. 6. Your children do not know the difference between seeds carefully harvested and laid out on paper plates or coffee filters to dry and trash. The same goes for newspaper and cardboard saved for weed barrier. :o I am certain there is more, I will try to share useful information as I think of it. Christan

I've become much more disenchanted with selecting rose varieties than ever before - I'm not sure why, maybe because I'm still limited to my own window ledge and haven't been home to my old garden in a few years, but I don't think I'll be ordering much this season. I'm dismayed at the closing of Sequoia and may try to get a few rare things from them before the end. It always seems that the most promising varieties are quite out of reach, so for now, I think I'll concentrate my efforts on breeding more than acquiring and see if I can't make the rose I'm craving but simply cannot buy. At work, I'll continue adding to the collection of wonderful Chinese rose species and cultivars; this is one of my little pet projects to increase public (and institutional) awareness of these amazing and largely well-adapted plants. Marianne (if you read this), do you really feel that both helenae cultivars are equal in hardiness, and that your zones 4-5 are warmer than ours? From reading which roses do well where in Scandinavia, I was under the impression that a zone 4-5 hardy rose where you live is roughly equivalent to one at my home in Minnesota, also zone 4-5. I was also fairly sure I understood that 'Lykkefund' is less hardy than 'Hybrida', which hopefully is soon on its way to Ashdown from Europe courtesy of a certain GW member! Stefan

In addition to the ones you identified I see Ratibida pinnata, Echinacea purpurea, Elymus virginicus (or maybe E. canadensis), and possibly Helianthus mollis. There is a thistle but can't tell which one. Also see some asters and goldenrods.

You might like to look at the eryngoes - some very fascinating eryngiums in the US and, although not exactly large leaved (a neat rosette) I have become slightly obsessed with dodecatheons. In the UK, we commonly come across d.meadia but I have seeds arrived for pulchellum and jeffryi. The primula family as a whole have been objects of desire for this sandy, dryland gardener and finally having moisture and shade, I intend to utterly ignore ph (neutral to acid - mine isn't) and plough ahead. No end of woodlanders but mostly spring - disporum, maianthemum, uvularia, jeffersonia, tellima, saxifrage, gillenia etc. I also bought an absolutely enormous artemisia (a.lactflora rosenschlier) to grow with panicum and miscanthus. I have the willow-leaved sunflower but remove the (insignificant) flowers. eta - just remembered begonia evansii ( b.grandis ssp evansiana-) a hardy type which should do OK in your zone...and also, polygonatums (Solomon seal things). Might be straying from the purist path though...