I am always so impressed by the level of thought that goes into making the selections, and I'm not surprised you get mentally exhausted from it!

I'm sorry to hear your mail is slow. Have you sent out a seed envy yet, does your PO overcharge?

Okay, players - the list of remaining seeds has been emailed to you - if you have a sensitive spam filter, be sure to check your folder for it. If you did not get it, please email me directly.

Stage_rat, I don't know that I've had any overcharges at the P.O. - P.O. seems okay for the most part, but anything I send to my family up nawth seems to take a week to get there. I am going to look up the +4 codes for your addresses before I mail these out, in hopes that that will speed things up.

Okay, I have heard from:

Micyrey & Hotwheel_Tim
Sandysgardens
Suecirish
Claylady
Fcoffill
Booberry
Patti1957
Jaynine

Keep 'em coming, folks.

Got several more responses on the remaining seeds, and I am working on divvying those up, and giving one last hairy eyeball to matching seeds to themes. I am going to assume that anyone that didn't respond doesn't have any further requests. I know I'm personally one of those who has so many seeds I don't want another (pick your seed that you have 10 of, but that seems to come back to you in every swap) sent back to me.

Kim-

Did you get my extras list? I sent it out on the 1st, so I just wanted to make sure! Did Grovespirit's seeds ever make it? This is like a soap opera! LOL!

Shelly

Hi, folks - I am back after a couple of hours at the P.O. today. Your seeds are on their way back to you. I have been in regular touch with Grovespirit, and she did not want me to wait any longer to return your packages to you. I agreed, and if her seeds do find their way to my mailbox, I will find a way to get them to you.

All the packs were sent with D.C. - my choice, even though I know some of you said you didn't need it. If you need the numbers, email me - I'm not going to post them all here. I do ask that you please post or email me when you get your seeds so I am not worried about whether or not you received them.

I'll have some observations later, but right now I must attend to some real life - ciao!

Kim

Oh boy, seeds on the way! I can hardly wait.
I'll let you know when they get here and thanks for all your hard work.

YAY!!!!
and THANK YOU (((HUG)))
I can't wait, so sorry about grovespirits getting delayed, I hope they show up. one time I had an envie show up 2 months after it was mailed, so don't give up hope.
I'm gonna be watching the malbox every day till they get here.
michelle

Kim

A BIG HUG and MANY THANK YOU's to you!! Now sit back and enjoy a glass of wine or two!

Later
Sandy

Hi, all - well, I started typing this up before, but hit some button on the keyboard and somehow deleted it - let's see if I can get it right this time!

Your seeds are on the way. Most of them have zip+4, all of them have DC. I hope you will see them soon.

There were, including my seeds, 2629 packs in all. They come to you from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Connecticut, South Carolina, New York, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Michigan, Oregon, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. Hooray for the USA!

There were more veggies this year, and, although there were 27 players, overall a smaller number of packs than I've had in the past (not necessarily a bad thing!). This is, I think, a sign of the times we live in - 2009 had some rough weather over much of the growing season in a lot of the country, so there's less to share - and with the economic state of the union, many of us are 'growing our own' - bigger veggie gardens.

I included lists this year, and divided your seeds by themes. Later additions went into unmarked baggies, so if you see a seed on your list, and don't find it in the respective theme baggy, look in the unmarked ones. (I recycled the baggies you sent in, so some of them may have someone else's name on them - ignore that). If you find something on the list that is not in your packet, that is my mistake, and I apologize, although I probably can't do much about it (you can email me with concerns, though, and we can try to work it out). If you find something in your packet that's not on your list, enjoy it - it's almost certainly meant for you, but I just overlooked it while typing.

I did not have time to scope out have/want lists. Hopefully I will get lucky and you will receive some things you didn't otherwise have. I had to do quite a bit of research for this - I hope I can retain for more than 5 minutes which plants grow in wet conditions, which in dry shade, etc. I did try to be attentive to zones. If you received a perennial not hardy in your zone, either it can be grown in a pot or I made a mistake.

YGIAGAM theme: if this is on your list, it is "Your Guess Is As Good As Mine" - it means that seed was sent in for you, but no theme was indicated, and I couldn't figure out where it was supposed to go, but you got it anyway. :)

Consider botanical names, folks - Eryngium yuccifolium and manfreda virginica both go by the common name Rattlesnake Master. The classic one for that is Moonflower - is it ipomoea alba (moonflower vine) or datura? Fortunately, with moonflower, I know the difference in the seeds - but botanical names makes it a lot easier for your host.

The seed counts in several packets - not just rare or unusual seeds - were quite small; some of the seeds sent in were quite old, some folks sent several copies of a particular seed. Mea culpa; I should have been more specific in the guidelines, but those of you playing in the swaps regularly should consider trying to shoot for 12-24 seeds as a minimum, seeds no older than 2 years old, and no more than 5 copies of a particular seed. I tried very hard to return to you varieties that you had not sent in, and a fair amount. Be careful, too, of packing - little seeds leak sometimes, even from plastic baggies and coin envelopes. I reinforce the corners of my coin envelopes (except when I forget, LOL).

So, okay - I stretched the themes a bit - :) - I indicated them on the lists, so you'll see. :) For those of you receiving seeds you have absolutely no familiarity with - may I recommend Tom Clothier's website for germination info, and other garden websites for general info - email me if you have questions.

I retired a few tired mailers - at some point, it probably costs more to reinforce them with packing tape than to buy a new mailer. One amazingly arrived with seeds intact, even though it was split down the side :0.

I was going to do some "superlatives", but a lot of that got away from me. Many of you did beautiful packaging and organization this year, too many to pick just one as "best packaged" or "best organized". I thank you for that; it made my job a lot easier. The one "superlative" that stands out for me is humor, and that was geared in my direction - for my Kings, Queens, and the Royal Court theme, Stage_rat sent me "Toady Lily" - I'm still laughing! :D

Biggest surprise? With her open-ended themes of GW Favorites and Rainbow Garden, I was dreading doing Lisam627's. I figured that with such open-ended themes, everything sent in earmarked for her would probably match what she sent in for others. Not so! I don't think there was a single duplicate.

I think that's about all my observations. It was a lot of effort, with much fun attached - and if it works out well for you, it will be worth it.

Peace,

Kim (who is listening to about 3 inches of rain coming down in Alabama)

One last note: some of the seeds you received were sent as pelleted seeds - for those who might not know, this is a coating process for otherwise tiny seeds. Pelleted seeds often don't survive much transportation in that state - if you receive a pack that is marked pelleted and looks a bit crushed, plant the entire contents.

Still raining like crazy here...

Guess it was too much to hope for that any of the mailers might have made it back this fast - I was watching the post all day, LOL.

Wow, Kim! I am so impressed and so in awe of you... I'm... I'm... speechless!

Oh, Kim, I wish my mailer had arrived today... sorry you waited and checked the list in vain. Hopefully tomorrow! I know I will be beyond excited when it arrives.

Guess what I got?! I'm just so thrilled; thanks everybody!! I went through them once quickly & will spend a little more time with them when I'm done with my chores~can't wait.
It's so obvious that alot of care & consideration went into the sorting & packing, so I must send a special thank you to our host: Thanks so very much, Kim. You did an amazing, wonderful job!

Yay! They are starting to arrive!

Mine arrived today, too! Thank you so much, everyone. I will enjoy looking many of these up and reading about them so I can plant them at the right time and in the right place. Wow, there were so many more packets than I expected. Very clever ways that they fit in with the themes, too. Just passing along two in particular: Obedient Plant and Hollyhock Watchman for the Law Enforcement theme. That is so cool! I hit the jackpot on travel - wish I could go to every place listed - sites range from Africa to Zagreb. I had never even heard of Zegreb - it's in Coatia, the capitol and largest city there!
Anyway, I can see that there is lots of fun ahead and my husband was a dear and bought a bag of potting soil when he went into town earlier so winter sowing, here I come!
Thanks again, Kim. I know this took up so much of your time and you are great at it.
I am even thrilled with those that were offered as "extras" - not your typical extras from my point of view. Whoever sent in Tovara Painter's Palette and Silvery Fir Tomato that landed on the extras list, I am thrilled to have them!
Jeanne

YaY! Mine JUST arrived. I was watching out the window as the mail lady was putting things in the mailbox, and there was the big manila envelope. I've scanned the list (very nice and very helpful, Kim) and it all looks wonderful. There are some that I will have to research, but they sound quite interesting. There were lots of oh! and wow! as I went down the list. I will sit and study it more later. But just wanted to let you know it was here, Kim, and to say thanks to you and to all the generous and thoughtful swappers out there.

We have seeds!! We have seeds!!

Timmy and I had so much fun going through our envies, all the great caterpilar plants, and timmy is looking forward to all the pumpkins and squashes, and goodies for him to feed the chickens.
I love all the great flowers, and the red bud tree seeds, I rilly like these for the butterfly farm, there are no trees around the garden and these will grow very fast.

thank you everyone and most of all drippy ((hugg))

happy gardening everyone
michelle

Great - you folks who received them are also some of the more "well-endowed" (in terms of seeds, of course!) - except perhaps our budding young gardener, Timmy - and I worry about you most, in terms of finding enough interesting things to make it worth your while to have participated. My personal stash, which contains a lot of older seeds due to my not being able to plant as much for the last two years, has so many different varieties that I'm hard put to find new things to order from seed companies, much less have someone guess what I might not have.

We are getting closer to solving the housing issue, though - have seen a few good ones, lately, and my DH just has to figure out how far he's willing to drive to work. I think we'll have something settled before the end of this month, if they don't all get snatched up in the meantime. In part with house buying, time is of the essence, but on the other hand, we don't want to be too hasty, as it would be impossible to change our minds. But hopefully I will have a place to garden this summer!

Meantime, I am getting ready for the cruise my sister & I are taking my mother on for her 80th birthday. I'll be spending a week on the ocean & in lovely St. Thomas (been there once 26 years ago) and St. Maarten (never been there). On the flip side, I will be spending a couple of days with my dear college roommate, who lives in Florida. All in all, a very nice de-stresser for me - the last couple of years, which have been not even been a blip on the radar compared to what the people of Haiti have been through, have nonetheless been a complete upheaval for me. Being able to focus on seed swapping & future gardening is part of what has kept me above water. Thank heavens for GW and all of you!

Yay!!!I have seeds.I am so excited about these.Wow,the selections I got were wonderful.I just cant wait to grow them.Thanks to all of you.Drippy a very huge thank you to you and a big hug.You did such a wonderful job.I dont know how you kept up with all of it.I hope you have a great time on your cruise.You really deserve it!!!!!

Vel, along with Browneyed Susan, you are my other "neighbor" - the Alabama Gardening Forum holds plant swaps twice a year - I am hoping to attend the spring one. You may live close enough (depending on where they are held) to consider coming.

YAY! I got mine today, too! That was an unexpected surprise! I am glad I waited on my seed order, because I got some that I had on the order form!

Thanks so much for doing this! I haven't gone through and checked them all against the list, but just perusing the list is enough to get me ready to start planting!!!

Shelly

Kim -

My stuffed package came today too. Two day delivery all the way to Minnesota is not bad. I'm sending a BIG Hug your way and a BIG THANK-YOU too!!!! You are the best swap host anyone could ever ask for - you go way ABOVE and BEYOND!!!! I really like the seeds choices that were sent to me by everyone and those you selected for me too!!

Okay - Lets talk cruises for a moment. You, your sis and mom are going to love the cruise. I do though want to ask what you plan on doing on St. Maarten? If you plan to go to the beach, which side of the island are you going to visit, French or Dutch? If you go to a French beach be prepared for what you will most likely encounter! I never laughed so hard when several of the younger men came back onboard the ship and told of what they experienced at one of the French beaches, too funny! Anywhooo, have a GREAT time on the cruise, it's like a sailing town!!!

Thanks again for a great swap and thanks to all who participated!!

Sandy

Sandy, as in nudes? We haven't figured out what we're doing on St. Maarten yet; we do know that on St. Thomas we are heading to the botanical gardens. :) (I have a lot of infuence, LOL) We are sailing on Freedom of the Seas, I think - and the first stop is Coco Cay, so we will be beaching it all day there. My sis was going to opt for Magen's Bay on St. Thomas, but after she figured we were going to be spending the whole day on Coco Cay at the beach, she decided she'd do the botanical gardens with Mom & I. I hope to get some nice pictures!

Glad these envelopes are getting to you folks nice & fast - and I'm glad seed choices are working out, too - you all sent some nice things in this year; very interesting varieties.

Dear Kim,
I got it! What a welcome sight this envelope was at the end of a long day... I am AMAZED by what was inside. The selection of seeds really shows your care, Kim, and the thoughtfulness and care of everyone involved in the swap.

Thanks to EVERYONE and blessings on all your gardens this year.
George

I recieved my package yesterday! Have just started going through the package! Lots of new things for me to try this year from seeds! thank you all so very much!

Kim you are a marvel of organization! Fabulous job! I do not know if I could survive 2 years in 'transit' Although I travelled a great deal for extended periods when I was young I am not sure I could cope these days, 2 or 3 weeks on the road now and I am ready to go HOME!!!

This will be the first year in a long time I am planning to do a lot of annuals, and now I have a great selection, thanks to everyone for a great swap!

Frances

Found them in my mailbox this morning when I got off of work. I never expected to receive them on Sunday but I am delighted as I have the next 2 days off to look them up. I see alot of creativity went into the Muppet theme in particular and I am overwhelmed by the response to my Addam's family theme, I thought that was going to get no response. I'll get a chance to look the rest over after grocery shopping. Thanks, Drippy you did an terrific job. And thank you everyone, this is going to be the best summer ever.

MARY

Okay, it looks like about half of you have received seeds - Browneyed Susan emailed me that she has received hers. My post office may get a reprieve - although Grovespirit's seeds are still in limbo somewhere.

Still waiting to receive their packets are Patti1957, Chitownladyd, Organic_selah, Rbrady, Cybermeowz, Poisondartfrog, Threeshyacres, Shellfreak, Booberry, Roper2008, Strmywthr3, Clay_lady, Stage_rat, Lisam_627, and Pattygrow5.

Mary, I really had to stretch for that Muppet theme - I thought I might luck out with "cookie" and "monster", but I haven't found any seeds with actual names of Muppets in them. At least the fact that Big Bird is a canary gave me some options. Glad you appreciated the lighter side.

Got mine yesterday. Holy cow!!! Drippy you are one organized chickadee. Thank you to every one. I started planting this a.m. It's 60 degrees & it's nice not to sweat. Gonna take a break & start cooking for tonite. Happy planting!!!

I got mine yesterday. I feel like I need to send you some money for office supplies, drippy! I have never received such an organized, detailed, documented envelope of seeds!
Thanks to everything for the thoughtful selections!
Alana

Shellfreak, I'm looking forward to 60 degrees - another couple of months here. Alana, I recycled baggies, purchased one small package of labels (big deal). I did replace a couple of bubble mailers, but they were with ones I had on hand that were less used. As I recall, the package you sent to me was extremely well organized, too. I don't think of the organization on my end as anything special; I am simply unable to function unless I have it all categorized and listed - I'm not really sure if that's a good thing, LOL!

Yippee! Mine arrived at my mom's yesterday, and i just opened the envelope!

Drippy, you definitely organized these seeds! It's so nice to not guess at what category the seeds belong to.

Thank you to everyone! There are a lot of great seeds in here that I would not have thought of for my different themes and tricky spots.

I'm one of the folk whose envelope Drippy had to replace. I thought mine was a nice, tough bubblie! That baby had been on many group swaps for me, I guess I missed some weakened seams--I'm glad it made it there!

Drippy, I'm glad I got you to laugh with "toady lily." I'll never get accolades for great organization or sending in early, but I can be funny sometimes!

Thanks again, Drippy and everyone!

I shall be stalking the mailman tomorrow:-)

Rhonda

Hey Kim,my neighbor,when you know when the Alabama swap is and if you are going please shoot me an email.If it is close enough,I would love to attend..

WhooHoo! I received my seeds today. I'm stunned and thrilled with the variety of seeds I received!

Thank you so much for all of your hard work!

Becky

Stage_rat, Beyond Boggy was a tough theme! There are a few plants in that bunch that will survive standing water, but no one sent in lotus (lily pads) LOL. Hopefully some of the ones that thrive in "wet conditions" will work.

Vel, I will send an email up your way when I get word of the swap. You're about an hour or so north of me, though, and I think the swaps tend to be closer to Birmingham, which is another hour south of me. But I guess we'll have to see when it actually gets closer to the time.

Becky, you hit the jackpot today, LOL - I saw you over on the Acres Edible Swap post. I got my seeds from that, too, and thought Tracy did an A-one job.

DC checks tell me that all of you who have not received seeds have them on the way - hopefully you will be seeing them soon. Don't be shy about emailing me for DC #s if you want to track them yourselves.

WooHoo! Guess what I had waiting for me tonight when I got home from work? A lovely envy full of wonderful seeds! You did such a super job organizing and fitting themes! I can't wait to look some of them up!

Thanks Drippy and thanks to everyone for the seeds you sent in for me!

Rhonda

Kim...if you were here...I would give you a big hug! AMAZING...that's what you are! My package was waiting for me when I got home from work last night and you really did an awesome job on this! I do want you to know that I'm sorry...I never meant for my "Themes" to be difficult for you...or to cause you any unnecessary worry. Please rest assured that I am SO PLEASED with your selections for me and very much appreciative of all the effort and hard work you put into this swap! I'm grinning from ear to ear right now - thinking about going through the envie again tonight after work! Also, I really appreciate the Salvia packs you put in for me (I love Salvia) and also including some seeds from your own stash as well. That was so sweet of you!!!!!

Strmywthr sent me some Paw Paw seeds...Wow - what a surprise! These seeds are unbelievable - I can't wait to get these started - thank you...and thanks to all others who sent in seeds for me!

Drippy you are the best hostess...thanks a million - I love everything. You are impeccable about your organization and so considerate of everyone's "wants". I will be so happy to sign up once again next year...if you will be interested in coordinating the Theme Garden Swap once again! You can be certain I'll be watching for it! : ) - Lisa

Rbrady, I'm glad the postman made it out alive :)

Lisa, your themes weren't hard at all, au contraire, they were very easy and open-ended. The "GW Favorites" category was one I didn't want to mess with at all - you got whatever was sent in for you on that - and I was just worried people might send you some of the very things you sent in. Not so, though, or even with the "Rainbow" category (which was so easy - almost anything fits into that! :)) - that was what I found so surprising. Bad language choice on my part; I should have never chosen the word "dreading" in my observations - should have said I was expecting that things would be duplicated. In any case, if you like snapdragons, you will love my favorite snap, the Connexion Red.

Nine more of you waiting...glad the rest of you are enjoying your seeds so far.

my package was waiting for me when I got home from work at 3am this morning. no chance to look thru it yet as I'm heading back into work. can't wait to open it up and look at all of my treasures!!

thanks guys!
Barbi

I received my seeds, thank you so much. I appreciate the time that had to go into this swap. I am excited about my seeds and can't wait to get to planting them. How on earth did you get them all in the envelope? I had to put them in a bigger one because they wouldn't fit back in the original one! It's like they multiplied once I pulled them out! Thanks to everyone who participated.

Patti

Kim,

There was a big package of seeds waiting for me when I got back into town today!!! I was out of town for a few days so I'm not sure what day it came, but WOW! I can hardly believe all of the wonderful seeds that I received. I've been looking through them and there are lot of things that I wanted and some that I didn't know that I wanted (but I want them now that I see them.) For example, I received Mexican Sage 'Limelight' for my blue and green garden. It has blue flowers with lime green calyxes. How cool is that!! So thank you everyone for sending in so many great seeds. I'm thrilled with what I got back!

And a special thank you to our hostess. When I was putting together seeds to send in for this swap, I kept thinking how much work this swap would be to host. Honestly, Kim, I don't know how you did it. My brain would have turned to mush trying to keep all of those themes straight. You did an amazing job!

Penny

Kim, you rock lady!!!

All I can say is wow! Need I say that my envy was waiting for me when I got home from work? Our swap leader really went above and beyond the call of duty!

Again, words can't describe the generosity of the members of this forum. I can't wait to research these seeds! I am so thrilled, winter sowing will take on a new meaning!

Thanks everybody,
La Donna

I received my seeds today! Wow, what a wonderful selection. Thank you
Kim and everyone who sent in these great seeds. Gonna have fun going
thru all these seeds tonight.

Heh heh, another cute animation, Chitownladyd! Glad to see these are finding their way home - Threeshyacres, Pattygrow5, Organic_selah, and Clay_lady, I hope yours come soon!

Kim thank you for hosting this AMAZING swap! I went through the children's garden seeds with my oldest daughter(she will be 5 in april) and showed her what all the seeds looked like on line and by the end she was so excited I thought she would cry for joy. In her words;

"Oh mom! How wonderful we have to thank them all for sharing! That was so very kind of them!"

So thank so everyone!!! This was my first round robin and it was a great experience!

Selah, I'm glad you got them. I was going to add in my observations that although the single most popular theme chosen by all of you was the Bees/Birds/Butterflies theme - a noble one! - the one it seemed everyone had a lot of fun contributing to was the Children's Garden. And as a teacher by trade, I can't help but love seeing all of you who are raising small children now getting them to love and nurture Mother Earth. You all rock!

Hello Drippy and Fellow Gardeners,

I received my seeds just before we were snowed in for several days. I really enjoyed looking through them, and I'm exicited for Spring. Snow, Snow....melt away! Everything was highly organzied, and I can only imagine how much time that must have taken.

Good job and a big thanks to all,
Jodi B.
'ThreeShyAcres'
: )

Hey, Jodi, you folks in Pennsylvania have gotten really pounded in the last month. Glad to see you got your seeds in spite of the snow.

I checked DC's, and they tell me Pattygrow5's and Clay_lady's have been delivered.

Happy gardening, all!