I would like to mention that this is a great thread; if I had read something like this when I began planting herbs it would have saved me a lot of trouble! I am in Pennsylvania, USA, zone 6, with rich clay soil and good rainfall. Our summers can be quite humid, and my property has several mature trees, so never gets truly full sun. When I started a little herb garden years ago I had no idea of the growth habits of any of the herbs, as I had never seen any of them growing in a garden (or anywhere else, for that matter). The references I was able to access at the time were little help. I returned to work shortly after that, and the next time I was able to give attention to my herb garden, the lemon balm/mint had completely overgrown all of the other herbs! It eventually seeded itself in little clumps all over my yard. I sometimes wish I hadn't pulled quite so much of it up, as it eventually subsided and practically disappeared. I found myself planting more of it last fall, as I am drinking more herbal teas these days, and also to compete with Yellow Archangel (an even bigger mistake I made more recently). I had the same experience with the purple-flowered agastache--"Korean Hysop," it easily gets two feet tall in medium shade and spreads by seeding itself all over the place--but it is easily pulled out and makes a good addition to herbal teas as well. Bee balm, on the other hand, will grow for me, but has never been particularly invasive; on the contrary, it seems to die out after a few years. Since I really don't get full sun, which catnip prefers, it has never done well enough for me for it to become a problem. Thyme and sage will overwinter for me, but only in pots. Thyme is so tiny it is easily overwhelmed by almost anything else, and I never plant it directly in the ground anymore, as I always lose it. I have found it will fill a gallon pot or equivalent container if kept to itself, however. Oregano will overwinter for me, but it has never become invasive; it is so low compared to many other herbs that it needs to be kept next to the edge of a bed, or in a pot. Coltsfoot will really take off and quickly cover a large, cultivated area--it is viny--but it died out after a few years, and I really don't consider it a problem under my conditions because of that (except in a small bed with other things that you want to survive, of course.) Lovage can get to four or five feet tall, with numerous leafy stalks. Even it can be shaded out by Angelica Archangelica, which develops wider leaves and can cast more shade. The Angelica A. I have in my garden right now was started last summer, and is about 3 1/2 feet tall, with leaves that extend out like wings for about 18 inches each. The central stem is about 2 inches thick. Comfrey will shade out anything in a four to six foot radius. Its leaves and stalks will initially grow straight up, but then collapse into a circle around the plant, smothering anything underneath. My most recent experience with invasive herbs was with Motherwort. I bought one small plant at Sturbridge Village a few years ago, and it spread through the back fourth of my yard by seed, even in lawn! It makes copious seed, as it gets about two feet tall, has numerous tiny flowers at every leaf node along the stem, and is a sturdy plant that gets spiny as it matures. It is not that difficult to pull out with gloves, though, and the young plantlets appear to be controllable by mowing. Ref. the comment above about tomatoes--even in my climate zone, a popular little yellow salad tomato has occasionally come back the next year in my husband's vegetable garden.

The reason people use potting soil at first is that the plants tend to not get fungi that kill them before the sprouts develop into larger plants. Potting soil frequently does not hold moisture that well, so watering is a bit more tricky than with soil. For your larger pots later, I recommend you purchase bags of topsoil. Most avid gardeners have lots of tough black plastic pots left over from plants they have bought. If you know anyone like that or join a gardening group you could probably easily acquire some of those in various sizes, from one to several gallons. If you are starting from seed, you will have awhile to get those. I have seen folks use styrofoarm cups as starter pots successfully, with a hole sliced in the bottom of each. Those cups easily tear in half, allowing you to get the plant out without disturbing the roots when you place them in a larger pot. When you transplant into a larger pot, if you fill the pot about half full of soil and then make a little hollow in the middle of the soil you can place your starter plant still in its soil into that, fill around it, and tamp the soil down gently with your fingers to eliminate air pockets, and water. You can get quite a few styrofoam cups into a flat such as an inexpensive kitty litter box or any similarly shaped container to catch excess water--even an old baking pan would do. You can find nice containers of all sizes to place your plants in at yard sales, and most plant shops have bargains on planters from time to time. As your herbs grow larger, you can always carefully make divisions of the perennial ones and replant in two pots, if you have none large enough. Many herbs tend to make do with the space they have and adjust their size accordingly. Chives and Thyme will be happy with a quart sized pot (4 inches) for at least the first season. Oregano can spread more than that with the right conditions--maybe a 6 inch or two gallon pot, or even larger. Marjoram does not return in my climate, but its growth habit is similar to Oregano. Basil and Cilantro are probably annuals, with a vertical growth habit, and Parsley is a biennial. The more sun you can give them, the larger the pot they can benefit from. I've never had luck with lavender, but if you give it full sun it can eventually form a large clump, depending on the variety. It's a perennial, so you could try to obtain an 18 inch to 2 ft wide container for it eventually...but probably not the first season. A lot of people purchase decorative pots without holes in them and then place the black plastic plant pots (which do have holes in the bottom) inside of them--if the plants receive too much water they can drain the excess into the decorative pots, which can be emptied of water if needed. If you go away for awhile, a bit of excess water will help keep your plants alive, as well. Good luck with your project. I wish I had known about this site when I began to plant herbs. ;o)

Hi Zinnia, If you're into perennials big time, the best place in Denver is Timberline Gardens out on the west side of town on 58th Avenue near Ward Road. That's nowhere near you, but if you're looking for best selection of perennials you won't find another place in Denver that comes close. For a full description of Timberline go to the tread I've linked below and scroll down to my post a couple of replies down. The closest "real" garden center to you would be Tagawa's on Parker Road just north of Parker. I used to live virtually across the road from them, but I never managed to find my way over there to check them out (I always have tended to start as much of my stuff from seed as possible!). They're a "real" garden center in the sense that they have growing facilities out here and grow a lot/much/most of the plants they sell themselves. Not sure how much since my information is very old by now! MANY years ago my brother, who has commercial greenhouses in Illinois, went to visit one of their growing facilities--in Brighton I think it was--and he was quite impressed with their operation, and he's hard to impress---so I assume they were doing a good job. Have never heard anything to the contrary, so I assume they still do! Not sure about their variety of perennials (can you tell that that's what I'm most interested in???) because they don't post a list online, but whatever they do have should be good quality as far as I know. Not sure of their selection of trees/bushes, etc. for the same reason, but at least when you shop there you're buying the plants from folks who actually DO know about plants! I have heard that their prices are kind of high, but since I've never been there I don't know that from personal experience! But--most of the "real" garden centers won't have much/most of their plants out yet, tho with the Unusual Warm we've been having lately it's really hard to predict when they'll be stocking up things like perennials and nursery stock, but those that have stock ready will probably be doing it soon, if not already. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of places are starting to sell annuals/veggies/herbs by now because of the warm weather and "demand," but if you--or anybody else around here--is being tempted, there's a very, very, veryveryvery good chance that if you put tender stuff out already it's going to FREEZE at some point and the only people that are going to benefit from your purchase is the garden center where you bought it--especially when you have to go back and buy it all over again! Any hardy plants you find for sale now--that are being displayed OUTSIDE should be adequately hardened off to put/keep/plant out now, but even for hardy things you find, if they're being displayed INSIDE, they will need to be hardened off before being moved outside. The moderate weather we have right now would make that easy, but if we Very Suddenly go from warm to COLD, they will probably need a little protection for a few nights. A lot of the suggestions on the linked thread are for mail order places, but there are other local places listed too if you read thru it. Another place that's mentioned that I haven't taken the time to go to is Harlequin's in Boulder. I've heard good things about it and hope to make a trip up there to check it out for myself this year sometime. I'm curious if Paulino's is getting their perennials up in the retail area yet--that would be on the front and south side of the retail store. Did you see anything out there--besides RIGHT by the front door where they probably have some blooming bulbs and pansies? And let us know what you think of any other places you check out too. Personal opinions are always good info for others, and the more individual opinions there are, the easier it is for others to decide where they want to go. Happy spring, Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Favorite seed and plant sources

Hi all, Finally finding time to get back here to post! MISTY -- I can't be sure because of the wide color variation, but I believe your first hen & chicks pic is of 'Icicle', and the second pic looks like the one I call C to me. I'm fairly sure on both of them, but would need to see "spring" pics to be positive! I have you down for the things you asked for, and let me know for sure about the 'Icicle', but if yours usually looks like the pics I'm gonna post below in late spring, you already have 'Icicle'. BARB -- you're covered on the 'White Nugget'! POLYGONUM -- could you possibly snip a handful of yellow iceplant cuttings off of yours for Misty and Lesuko? Most of mine suddenly died off last year--as I've warned folks can happen!--and while I could get "some" cuttings off of mine, they're really "wimpy" looking right now, and it sounds like yours is doing really well and would provide better cuttings! If that doesn't work for you, let me know and I'll bring some of my wimpy ones! Let me know if you had time to check out your semps! A couple of them I only got one "batch" of, so they're already spoken for, but I still have A, E, G, H, K, and 'Icicle'. Gonna post some pics of 4 of them below! LESUKO -- I have you down for one of everything I posted above--with the yellow iceplant from either Polygonum or me! I have LOTS of cuttings for most of the sedums, so, except for a couple of them, I'll have a really nice bagful of each for you--along with the directions for what to do with them! Will also bring a nice big bunch of the bare root Ajuga for each of the first three, and will have at least a couple starts for the 'Black Scallop'. Also the hen & chicks--with directions, the 'White Nugget' iceplant, and I haven't done them yet, but probably a start for the Turkish Veronica. Virtually everything I have this time is ground covers, so it won't really get anything going on in your yard vertically, but it will help to fill up some of the bare soil, and you can always dig them up later and give them away to somebody else when you get around to planting other things! With your strawberry runners, no, they don't need to be attached for them to root, so snip some off and bring them along! All you need to do is "tuck" the bottom of the offshoot into the soil and let it root so they don't really don't really need the "runners" attached, but if there's some runner left on it, it can be used to help "anchor" it into the soil until it roots, so you might want to snip them with some of the runner still attached. Don't know how many you have, but you might want to make up a/a few "little batches" of them for "picking." I also have 11 "perennial" things in pots, like I mentioned above, and while some of them are just rooted pots of the sedums I posted above, there are a couple things I didn't post--and I'm gonna keep them secret till the swap--but I know folks are gonna want them! :-) And I also dug/pulled some bare root "something else" today that I'll have three "batches" of--and I'm not gonna tell you what it is! They're currently residing in the vegetable drawer in my fridge--since they're bare root! Oh! And also got a really good batch of seeds from one of my perennials this year that I seldom have enough to give away--is that an illiterate sentence or what?--so I made up some seed packets to bring of "that," and one other thing that folks are usually interested in! And that's probably it for this time! I'm not a big fan of Cold Hands Gardening, so I probably won't be poking around out there looking for things anymore--gonna try to get the Ajuga dug/pulled tomorrow, hopefully before the front moves in! And, since it's gonna be cold out by Thursday, I collected the hen & chick starts today and I was able to get more of some of them than I thought I would! Since only one person has expressed any interest so far, and since there are probably only gonna be about 6 folks at the swap, I'm gonna post a few more pics of the ones I have more than one "batch" of, so even if you don't ask for them in advance you can look to see if there are any you'd like to get on the day of the swap. As you can see from these pics, the color varies GREATLY depending on the time of the year and the winter temps in any particular year! I'm just posting the small version of the pics, but they should all be clickable to see the bigger versions! A - I have 4 batches that aren't spoken for E - I have 5 batches that aren't spoken for K - I have 4 batches that aren't spoken for - winter color - summer is all "blue spruce" color! 'Icicle' - I have 5 batches that aren't spoken for A few more pics! I really do have a lot of most of the sedum cuttings! Sedum 'Tricolor' in summer and winter color on the right side of the second pic Sedum 'Angelina' summer and winter colors Sedum album - the Dangerous One! Plain green in summer, this is winter! Sedum reflexum 'Blue Spruce' - same in summer & winter! Sedum pachyclados - same color summer & winter! Sedum 'Dragon's Blood' - Plain green in summer - this is where the name comes from! (Don't have a whole lot of this one!) And two of the Ajugas! 'Royalty' 'Chocolate Chip' Don't have a good pic of 'Arboretum Giant' but it's pretty much plain green leaves that are about twice as big as the 'Royalty'! And not gonna post a pic of the 'Black Scallop' or everybody will want some--and I don't have a whole lot--yet! Not gonna bring a lot of the Ajugas unless I know somebody wants them! Will bring a couple "bunches" in addition to the one of each that's already promised, so if you want more, let me know! Skybird P.S.!!! Almost forgot this one! Delosperma basuticum 'White Nugget'