re-posting my list to make it easier to find. Please let me know if I haven't marked something for you that we have traded for. It is starting to get to that stage where the brain is on overload :) chives garlic chives small hosta--I believe it is one called 'gold edger' perennial candytuft seedlings (second year)--BEV & GARDENG8 one Aruncus aethusifolius (dwarf goatsbeard)-grows 8-12" tall--DIDZGARDEN cranesbill-NOID I received this at a swap several years ago and although it has no ID, it is a very nice one that clumps nicely and doesn't get too big-- has nice pink flowers -- one to GARDENG8 AND SIGNET rooted (and potted up) brugmansia cuttings--DIDZGARDEN feverfew betula white birch tree seedling-LUCKYNES rose of sharon approx 15-18"tall--(1) creeping thyme--not sure of the name, but it is the completely flat kind.-BLUEIRIS achillea-cerise queen--few small pot of hosta--NOID (green with thin white edging) three baby rhubarb plants in one pot-apparently self sown Ivory silk lilac tree seedlings about 2" tall.--pot to SIGNET (couple more available) clustered bellflowers--dark purple-- SIGNET geranium sanguineum pink lily of the valley--CAROL white violets with mauve centre violet--'freckles' hibiscus--red shield-healthy seedling--SIGNET AND CAROL(OUT) tomato seedling--vitagold (this is red..not yellow) phlox--tall-pink BARB (OUT) phlox--tall-white with pink centre--BARB (OUT) iris--yellow-short(approx 10-12")--BLUEIRIS feverfew tulipa tarda--BARB AND SIGNET (OUT) hosta (medium) recd as a NOIDsee pic aboveBEV and one still available hydrangea-annabelleSIGNET & BLUEIRIS dark ivy-possibly Baltic small evergreen seedling clematis prairie travellers joy(AGGRESSOVE)SIGNET & BLUEIRIS cinquefoil-redWSsmall HOS asclepias incarnata--milkmaid siberan iris--probably purple hosta-hadspens blueBEV (OUT)

I took a vacation to New Mexico and collected a lot of seed from wildflowers that I thought had promise. Now to see if they can put up with Central Texas humidity. Apache plume, Rubber rabbit brush, 4 winged salt bush, desert asters, and several thick bush forming heterothecas ( stiff leafed false golden aster). I have many dessert mallows and penstemons from around the state. 50 seeds varieties in all. Many without names. I have one pink buckwheat that dies back making a gorgeous dark red cluster that it holds thorough the winter. I have my fingers crossed. They are all growing and have survived the winter in 4" pots placed on the ground with a cloth over them for a couple of nights. I love to experiment. I have been growing cold hardy cactus. I am tired of having to cut off 200 lbs of melted slime off my large "old mexico" cactus 2 years running. I dug the whole thing out. I like the Santa Rita Purple padded cactus. Some varieties that have the O glocinaia (sp) strain are not that hardy but the O macrocentras and O. Santa Rita "tubac" are winners. They survived in pots. I also like the O. chenile, O Erineacea, and O.polycantha. I collected a Huge padded nasty needled Opuntia from the Valley of Fire State park that is gorgious but dangerous. I had a needle go in me and break. It just came out 4 months later. I forgot about it. I think I am naming it Sid Vicious Evil Twin. Sid Vicius moniker is already taken By a cactus sent to me. I grow most of the plants mentioned above by others. and they take no care except cutting back to make bushy. There is one texas plant that I never seen grown in the trade but is gorgeous and that is Antelope horn milkweed. I also like Echenacea augustifolia and Crag lilly Echeandia texenis(not a show stopper but a nice fall bloomer that bees love), Dalea aurea, and False Gaura . I love my natives.

There are parts of Australia where it snows, but there wouldn't be anywhere in Australia that has cold of the sort you get in North-east US. I'd be pretty sure midyim berry wouldn't even tolerate more than a slight frost for a few days each year, and even then it would look pretty poorly until the summer rains of its native climate came and revived it. (It does like to be dry throughout winter). You might be able to nurse it along indoors, if you want badly enough to eat something that has subtle hints of cinnamon and turpentine in its flavour. Then again, it wouldn't be easy to provide it with the sort of winter day-length to which it is accustomed, unless you had some of those special "daylight" lights. I've seen ruby saltbush growing near the beach (on almost pure chalk) in South Australia. It gets cold down there - a typical mediterranean-style climate - but I suppose snow on the waterfront is rare. You'd probably need to get seed collected from the right part of Australia to have Buckley's chance (and do look that Australian expression up) of it's surviving the cold. There is enormous variability in the Australian plants gene pool. I think, for instance, that you could be sure of failure with ruby saltbush seed from my area. Are these plants actually available in the US? You could ask people who have grown them there - or is that what you're trying to do on this site? I'm inclined to agree with the writers above on the unwisdom of importing plants from another ecosystem when so much damage has been done worldwide by feral weeds already - but I'd be putting my money on your chances of rampant failure with most of our bush tucker species. I also wonder why you'd go for Australian bush tucker when there must surely be some interesting indigenous north American food plants. Is there a US equivalent of the Australian bush tucker movement? Trish

I don't know why the native grasses are so stunted on our property. I'm sure irrigation has something to do with it. Plants of the Southwest has a giant sacaton that is over 6' tall, and I see deergrass that is already 4' high and just starting to put out flowering stems, but these are all in places where they water regularly. Mine were watered during their first year, then just sparingly after that. Of course we also have all the critters who crop everything to the ground during the dry season which runs October to June. I'm mystified at why Karl F and Karley don't do well for you. KF is planted all over the city. If it's watered regularly it can top 5'. Mine is about 4' with pretty seed heads like a bunch of masai spears. Last year Karley was about 5', a huge fountain of muted rose plumes. We don't have rain in the fall, so it stayed tall and graceful. I had to move it, it was too big for the bed. It survived the move but it may take a year to settle down. I have Korean feather reed too, also Avalanche and Eldorado. All seem to be surviving which counts as success here. They're about 2' (Avalanche and Korean fr, both from last year), and 1' (Eldorado, this year). Nothing is watered heavily. All of these are doing better than the natives which mostly are barely above the ground. I have Mexican feather grass and New Mexican feather grass which are 2-3', very striking, but they're the exceptions. The big joke is ricegrass. I have 3 from PoSW, planted last year, which are little tufts about 4" tall. But with the higher rain this year, ricegrass has sprung up everywhere, looking a million times better than my PoSW sprouts. And the best of all is the clump growing in a crack in the road, a gorgeous spray of bright green and silver.