Hi Gardenweed, Thanks for the tips re: planting schedules - that makes sense to me, and is pretty much what I would have guessed, but nice to have it confirmed by someone with more experience. How fortunate you are to have grown up with gardening parents, and to have inherited all that good soil yâÂÂall built up over the years! IâÂÂm in the house my husband grew up in, and I donâÂÂt think his folks were much into gardening, so each year I try to carve out and claim another little bed or corner as time and energy allow⦠That is a shame about your laptop (and job) crashing. My husband & I have a computer shop here in our small town, and he also teaches computer classes at our local library, one of which is photo editing. For that one he has his students use Magix Xtreme, which I believe is a free download - might be a useful (and cheaper) alternative to Photoshop. Not to get too far off gardening here, but we are also sometimes-sailors! We bought a MacGregor 25 in 2006, and took it on a big adventure sailing down the gulf coast of Florida for 5 weeks in 2007. Since then, we try to get out on our nearest lake for a month or so each year, where we can dock it and leave it for a few week end visits with friends. HavenâÂÂt had a chance to do any sailing this year, since our shop assistant quit at the end of Feb - too many computers to fix in this town. He has occasionally hinted at chucking it all and taking up the live-aboard cruising lifestyle, to which I always have to point out that as appealing as that sounds, it is very hard to garden on a boat! :) CanâÂÂt have all our hobbies in one basket, unfortunately. IâÂÂll keep those hostas in mind when I get around to planting. (Good tip about the egg shells!) IâÂÂm in our local garden club, and that seems like something some of my fellow members might have, so maybe I can get some shares, if thatâÂÂs not too hard to do. Once again, thanks for your helpful insight & genial conversation! Best to you - Amy

Hi, eldo. Thanks for writing. Summers are plenty warm, I'd say, with weeks of highs in the eighties to nineties during the day (during our current drought it's been getting over a hundred), though cooling at night to the seventies, at times sixties. Our heat-loving roses are blessedly happy here, for example. I'll consider the shade factor, though this plant isn't in shade, to be honest, not under a tree. It does get a good deal of sun. Also, in my dad's yard in Florida (where I am now) I notice that the crepe myrtles with shade are really reaching for the heavens, extremely leggy, while this plant is healthily compact. Could the dry summer conditions be a problem, dry air I mean? ????? Thanks for the input. Melissa

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'

I have had an Endless Summer hydrangea in my front shrub border since the first year it was introduced.... 10 years??. I like to refer to it as Endless Frustration. The plant itself is huge... Close to 5' tall and at least as wide... But it rarely has more than a couple blooms on it each summer. I only leave it there because, even with very few blooms, it is still a beautiful shrub. Large, dark green leaves... Nicely rounded shape. I tried an experiment a couple years ago. I took cuttings off the mother plant in September. Rooted them in jumbo four packs... Left them outside well into the fall to experience enough cold to lose their leaves and go dormant. At that time I put them on a basement window sill. Because the window is single pane glass it stays quite chilly all winter long, but doesn't freeze. In late March or early April, I pot the cuttings into 8-10" terra cotta pots... Three cutting per pot... And put them outside in a protected area... Protecting from frost if needed. I add some aluminum sulphate to the soil to acidify it and insure blue flowers. I water regularly and keep them in a fairly sunny area. By early June I have pots of gorgeous blue hydrangeas to place around the yard and enjoy all summer. Yes, it's a little bit of work, but nothing difficult... I'm a plant geek and enjoy doing stuff like this. My original planting of ES may be a floral disappointment, but this way I get to enjoy sumptuous blue hydrangeas every year. I attach a pic so you all can see how lovely they turn out.