Hi, would you be interested in trading a bit of your Scarlet Gilia for some Lemon Beebalm- Monarda citriodora? LMK. Ronnie

Hi MIchelle! (Sorry to be so slow in responding, but I just saw this) I'd love your Liatris punctata, Oenothera pallida, and Hibiscus moscheutos. If you find enough from my list that you'd like..I wouldn't mind double trades of all 3 species :-) Please email me directly at Thosedarnsqurls@aol.com

It is great you are keeping your garden green with natives. Many of the native plants are protected here in Michigan--no picking Loosestrifes, Queen Anne's Lace, and we have a shortage of Joe Pye Eye Weed and violas--so, I embrace all my natives that I can! Keep up the good work--and get your hands in the soil--somehow that is how I find my solace to dealing with stress (especially between the books, if you know what I mean). Good luck, Pam! If you see something on my small (newly started garden) and I am a newbe on the forum, e-mail me at pconnole@aol.com and let me know--more than likely SABSE will work just fine with some of the seeds.

I think you're going to need a deer fence to keep them out of your orchard...but planting in front of the fence will look nice and help disguise the fence. From what I've read, you can either do an 8' deer fence, all the way around, or two fences (about 4' apart) that are 4' tall. I don't know if this will work, but it's supposed to, according to some other forums. I've also read that an electric wire or two will work, but not here. We have an electric fence around our horse pasture (seven wires, two hot ones) and the deer jump over, crawl under and even walk through...very carefully. As for the roses, my deer like to chew on the new growth, but I plant them against the house or fence...and I put lots of lavender, other herbs and deer resistant plants in front of them. They still reach though in the fall, and nibble, but an exposed bush will get eaten down, pretty fast. Butterfly bushes are not thorny, but the deer don't care much for the taste. They also ignore (for the most part...babies taste almost everything) coneflowers, cosmos, daisies, lilacs, bee balm, mint, lavender, alyssum, marigolds, pontilia, blueberries, stock, tomatoes, acorn squash, sunflowers, white petunias (don't know why) pansies, violas, columbine, sweet woodruff and the strawberries, if they're growing under other shrubs or herbs they don't like. All deer are probably different, but mine don't pay much attention to these plants...so except for my roses, that's pretty much what I plant, here :)