You have to type in the title of the article in the search function to get there, but it was an interesting read. I particularly think we all need to know that many of the plants now produce sterile seeds. That is a good thing re invasive plants but a bad thing if you want to collect seeds, especially vegetable ones. Root, in that seed list I posted from NARGS, did you notice that the wild collected seeds had the site from which the seeds were gathered? I try to request seeds from areas in which the horticultural features mimic NC's Piedmont. So many plants we purchase are now grown from tissue culture. There are positive things about this action, but it also means a "sameness," perhaps no chance of random sports. T. Avent buys tissue culture starts for many things, but most of his expensive plants are grown out the "hard" way, thus his very high prices. On the other hand, tissue culture has made possible lady slipper orchids at what some may think a reasonable price...still a little too pricey for me to chance growing them...but I love seeing them in his new catalog, which just arrived at my house yesterday. Happy New (Gardening) Year to all.

I got a couple of June tissue cultures a couple of years ago...and I'm not feeling the love for June, either. I ended up buying Touch of Class because that's the hosta that I wanted June to be. TofC was new last year and I divided it at the get go, so it's still small...but it is lovely. A must-have, IMO. Now, if my Junes looked anything like Idiothe's (which they don't), I would tumble head over heels in love. (Mine has too much yellow & it's too brassy for my taste.) But I completely understand where you're coming from, Brandy. Save the money and get something you really, really love. (I only got June because they were cheap--TC's--and it was on everyone's list of favorite hostas. OTOH, 'everyone' was spot on about Montana Aureomarginata...Mine was also new last year and it already takes my breath away every time I look at it!)

The Sears prices for the 20 lb.and 40 lb. bags of both Tomato-Tone and Garden-Tone are almost exactly the same price I paid the last time I bought them at one of the few nurseries that carry them in north central Texas, and that's an 80-mile one-way trip I don't have to make, so I feel like I have come out ahead this time. I can find the 4 lb. bags at some of the Calloway's Nursery stores in north central Texas, but I think the last time I saw them there last year they were insanely high-prioed....like $9.99 to $11.99. Every now and then I see some of the Espoma line in a local Home Depot, though not consistently, and when I do the price is more reasonable. I simply buy whatever I find wherever I find it because when you're in a really rural area where you have to drive 20 or 30 miles one way to make it to something like a Wal-Mart or Lowe's or Home Depot, you know your options are fairly limited. Sadly, there's an extremely strong farming/ranching heritage here in my area based on a high usage of chemical, synthetic products so that's what the stores carry. They tell me the demand for organic products is too low and too inconsistent for them to devote much shelf space to them. It was a huge shock for me when we moved here from Fort Worth-Dallas in the late 1990s to learn I'd still have to drive to Fort Worth-Dallas to get organic gardening supplies. We're in our 13th year here and it hasn't improved much. There's a limited selection of organic supplies in stores here, but probably not even 20%-30% the selection of what I'd find in any one of the many nurseries and garden centers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that carry organic products. When we moved here, I didn't realize that the D-FW area had a larger base of organic gardeners that most parts of the country, except for the West Coast and the Austin, TX, area and that they were light-years ahead of most of the rest of the world in the availability of organic gardening products. I believe this was largely due to J. Howard Garrett and Malcolm Beck and their writings and Howard's radio show. Because we had organic gardening supplies available in several select nurseries in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as far back as the late 1980s and much more widespread in the 1990s I thought organic gardening supplies were easily found everywhere, but they aren't. What is even sadder is that some of the local, independent nurseries, feed and seed stores and garden centers who were at the forefront of the organic movement in the D-FW metroplex for many years aren't doing well in this economy, and I heard that one of my favorite stores, Green Mama's, which sold native plants and organic supplies when we still lived in Texas, is closing their doors, and they're not the first to do that in recent years. It makes me wonder....if a well-established native plant nursery/organic supply store can't survive in the D-FW area where organic gardening is well-established and popular, then how can they survive anywhere? When you're lucky enough to find a store that carries organic supplies, give them your business consistently and refer everyone to them that you can because smaller, independent retailers have such a hard time surviving in this economy and we need to do what we can to support the companies that carry the supplies we need. Susan, I agree in general about the online companies that offer free shipping and handling. I rarely order online because shipping cancels out any cost savings, and free shipping seldom is "free". Every now and then I can order somsething online for less than I'd pay in local stores and if free shipping is included, it's an even better deal. I usually can find Semaspore online cheaper than it is in nurseries in Texas (no one has it in the stores here near me in southern OK). Last year I even had a 25-lb. bag of Surround-WP bought/shipped for less than it would have cost me to buy it in Fort Worth. So, there's good deals out there online but they're not that easy to find. In this particular case with Sears, I would never, ever have bought this stuff and paid to have it shipped. The shipping would have increased my final price about 50%. Based on other "local" (if you consider Dallas local for me) prices, though, I got the Espoma for the same or less than what I would have paid if I drove to Dallas to get it, so I'm a happy camper, except I'm worried I didn't order enough of it. I wish that other retailers would start carrying more of all the Espoma products too. The only ones I've ever seen here are the Garden-Tone, Holly-Tone, Plant-Tone, Tomato-Tone, and their some of their single-ingredient items like bone meal, blood meal and lime. I've never seen their soil mixes any place. I'd bet some of the larger, more well-established nurseries in Dallas proper would have them, but that's just too far for me to drive. I think y'all's best bet in OKC may be that new organic store that you've mentioned. If all of you in that area keep asking them if they carry or plan to carry more of the Espoma line, maybe they'd give those products a try to see if they catch on. Dawn

good for you! Here is a link that might be useful: not a useful link...just my blog