Thanks alot for this year's swap ! Steve thanks for all the neat stuff especially the Crossvine and Spicebush,Ive been reading that the Stewardia is very endangered now. Lori thanks for the Fennel which Ive been reading up on and I hope to get some Swallowtail cats on it this year.Thanks for the Christmas Ferns and Spiderwort as well! You always have the best Natives. It's so hard to find these natives around ! Lori I got everything in the ground today and I re-discovered my original Spicebush that you gave me last year! It was tucked away in the Columbine bed and is now about 12" tall.I was so happy to find it again . I knew I put it in an area that I would'nt be disturbing and I was crossing my fingers that I did'nt pull it out thinking it was a weed. I just cut down the last of my invasive White Mullberry to give it some more sun.I planted Steve's in the same area. Drew thanks again for the big 'ole clump of Hosta and the fine clumps of Sedum.It was nice meeting you and maybe we'll bump into eachother again. Tiarella thanks for the Red Cardinalflower, you can never have too much of that. Thanks to the 'Tomato Guy' too,I hope they all find a home. Good luck to everyone who got my seedlings , most of them were potted up in the last few days so be careful with them because they are probably allready cranky. Lisa and Ellen thanks so much for making this happen ! We even got to see Bluebirds! -Stephen

There are several sites online that sell Little Bluestem seed by the pound. The commercially available seeds are: Aldous (Kansas) Cimmaron (Kansas, Oklahoma) Blaze (Nebraska) Camper (Kansas, Nebraska) I ordered some grass seed from Pase once. You get a very small amount of seed, I mean really small, like 25 seeds or less depending on the variety. The price is low but you really get what you pay for in this case. The B.S. seed sold from Plants of the SW is one that I can talk about since I planted it one year. The plants are very nice and light blue, classic bluestem with a good upright habit. The rule on starting grasses is: The first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap. Bluestem seed germinates very easily but they really need warm weather. I'm trying some indoors this winter and the plants frankly look pretty dismal & haven't grown much at all in my sunny room with the south exposure. It gets a bit cold at night but I'm talking only 60 degrees. Its all but a failed experiment, I usually do much better in there with other seeds. I looked up King Ranch Bluestem. I think I've seen that growing on roadsides in waste areas or abandoned farms. The best way to tell if its bluestem at the seedling stage is that the leaves are VERY flat at the base and resemble Iris foliage, they always remind me of tiny iris. wiscons--agastache always dies on me in summer. It looks fine then up and dies. A woman on the Texas forum said the same thing happens to her every time. Maybe its the humidity? I don't know but last year was definitely my very last try since it was the supposedly 'easier' to grow 'more tolerant' cana type.

I'm not sure what part of NYS you are in. I'm in the Greater Rochester Area and my Thalictrum Pubescens is completely in bloom at the moment. Neat and care-free plant if you have a shady setting for it. I got my from a local native plant source: http://www.amandasnativeplants.com if you are interested. FataMorgana

It is a Viburnum. The leaf arrangement, berries, and autumn leaf color are all diagnostic. IME V. dentatum has slightly shiny, evenly toothed leaves, so I don’t think it is that. Also IME yours doesn’t quite look like V. acerifolium/maple leafed viburnum, though it looks more like that to me than dentatum. All the Viburnums I grow, whether cultivars, non-natives, or natives are rugged plants, easily able to deal with animals, competition, no supplemental water, etc. in my very rural and quite cold area, so I wouldn’t automatically dismiss all nonnative Viburnums. When they produce berries (need a compatible plant that isn’t genetically identical) they have been known to self seed into the wild or at least into unplanted areas.