One of the first places I look for a description of what I am enamored with is the NC Invasive Exotic Plant List. I have several books that I refer to often: Gardening with Native Plants of the South, AHS Plant Propagation, and another prop book by Alan Toogood (What a cool name!) Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs, Southeastern Wildflowers, Tree Identification for the Southern US, and, Southern Living Garden Book (akin to Sunset's Garden Book which is written for the Western States). These have all been dogeared, dirtied, and watered on, but the most information I have gleaned is from this Forum. Joan_NC got me started on it and I have learned so much from her too. I totally think that the swaps are the best way to share information about plants since we always bring home something we have no idea what it is and then pick everyone's brain for care and feeding and get lots of enjoyment from the sharing. I love going to each other's gardens and listening to the lament of 'soon' this or that, all the while seeing what they have done from basically nothing to today's spectacular when I see it. We all tend to put ourselves down for not having the garden at perfection - ready for the cameras, but others see it as an expression of the people who love their space - some yell, some stroll, some yank and twist, some touch every petal and leaf, some wax profusely about one particular growing thing, some just smile and rock in the chair enjoying what they spent 47 hours getting de-weeded and watered, and some of us do all of that everyday. This forum provides technical information, but also the human side of making things grow. We are not so proud as to say everything we plant will grow, will not have bugs and diseases, and be prolific enough to share. Here we say, 'been there, done that, got a T-shirt', but we'll try again next year! And, there are so many people who point us to web sites or books that provide an ever expanding realm that we would not have been exposed to otherwise. There is just so much surfing one can do... Glowing writeups about Artemesia 'Limelight' for sale has nothing on 'this stuff is rhizoming its way to the back forty!' from someone who was smitten by the lovely leaves and has regretted it ever since. I surf the web for plant descriptions and growing conditions, I look at the pretty pictures and read the sales-hype - then I go to my books and search the forums here at the GardenWeb. Here is a link that might be useful: Invasive Plant List for NC

I am starting a good many kinds of lupin this spring inside. I soak them in warm water at least two days. I am sowing Band of Nobles, Gallery Pink, Gallery mix, Russell Governor Blue, Tutti Fruitti, Sundown, (I have LuLu on hand.) I may sell some at the farmer's market in town. I may do the same thing with the tons of delphinium I have started. I took the suggestion somewhere on the web of freezing the seed just ONE night and sowing the next day. It works nicely. I plan to have a huge variety of foxgloves most of which I have already started under lights as well. As a kicker, I hope to have many, many old fashioned Canterbury bells to sell. I like to go for the tall and spectacular. Ordinarily, I give a lot of them away, but I would like to recoup all the money I have spent on, seeds, deep cell flats and starting mix. I just go nuts in March to November. LOL. Oh yes, I am going to plant lots of varieties of single and double hollyhocks, another tall beauty, several varieties of verbascum Olympia and other tall or spectacular. If only my dreams of my garden could come true!!

Don't know if this will help, but I save nearly ALL of my seed by simple air drying on paper plates. I find the plates have a microbial element and its really easy to scrape the seed off of. When you save a lot of seed as well they stack really easily for further transport into 2x2 mil bags. I like the 2x2 or 3x2 bags because they are easy to label and it allows for easy gifts/trade. Larger quantities of seed go into sandwich, quart, or gallon ziplock bags. The 2x2/2x3 then go into the freezer, fridge, or main fridge where I have a "put out shelf/storage shelf". I tranfer from freezer to put out shelf so it is like the thawing cycle for about two weeks or so before I plant. I also find it easier to throw freshly dried seeds into the main fridge and transfer over a couple of times a year when I need to get seeds out. That way I am not going in and out of the freezer seed consistently. I really like freezing seed and store it in soft canvas coolers in the freezer and have them divided by herbs (small), trees(small), annuals/perinneals(medium) and fruit/vegtables(whole shelf). Hope that helps and gives you some ideas. They also make drying trays, you can turn on an oven on low and cut off let dry in oven, hang dry, use powders, etc... easiest way I have found is the way I do it above by far... some things like lettuce, carrots, broccoli can be left on and will dry on its own and its really easy to harvest seed from.

I think this is a great idea. I put in the zip code for the part of Ohio I used to live in and let it work. I have a couple of problems with the results. Here is the Spring results for Beavercreek, OH, zip 45430. Spring All Season Mow at height of 3" for first mow of spring as soon as the grass begins to grow Mow at height of 3.75" April April 18 - First day to seed April 11 - Summer annual weed pre-emergent herbicide application deadline. May May 10 - Last day to seed May 4 - Fertilize with 3.75 lbs of Nitrogen First: If you are going to suggest spring seeding, I would put in some more information about the hazards of that practice. Spring is a horrible time to seed new grass, and mid to late spring is worse and worse. Bluegrass is the very worst for that time of year because it takes almost a month of continual watering to germinate the grass seed. The reason spring is bad is that crabgrass and other summer annual weed seed is germinating at exactly that same time. By watering for a month you can guarantee every weed seed in the lawn will have beaten the bluegrass seed to the surface. If you could seed in early spring you might be able to miss some of the weeds, but you're still going to have a yard full of weeds in July. Secondly typical turf grasses seeded in the spring do not have time to develop roots sturdy enough to make it through a hot summer. Again, weeds in July. Second: April 11 might be too late for preemergent. Generally the guidance we have been giving here is based on Nature. The time to do preemergent is when the forsythia are blooming in your neighborhood. That may or may not be April 11 for Beavercreek. If the Beavercreek temperature averages correspond to the forsythia bloom, then this is perfect guidance, but it might be altered every year by an early or late forsythia bloom. Third: ...and please don't get discouraged by my comments - I'm trying to be helpful. In keeping with the natural approach, May 4 is likely to be too early to fertilize. The idea for the spring fert drop is to apply after the initial spring flush of new/fast grass growth. Applying early will force the plants to use too many nutrients they have stored over the winter. It will be worn out before the summer. Too many people jump the gun with spring fertilizer and cause problems with late spring and summer growth and health. Fertilizing late is better than fertilizing early. Change that, fertilizing late is much better than fertilizing early. We typically talk about fertilizing on Memorial Day for two reasons: one is that it is easy to remember, and the second is that it is guaranteed to be after the grass has stopped rocketing out of the ground. On to summer... Summer All Season Mow at height of 4" June June 26 - July 10 - Fertilize with 3.75 lbs of Nitrogen June 22 - Grub worm preventer application deadline. First: Grass undergoing summer heat stress can sometimes be overstressed by a dose of chemical fertilizer. For that reason, if you are going to recommend summer fertilizer, I would emphasize using an organic fertilizer like Milorganite, alfalfa pellets, or soybean meal. Second: Recommending insecticide on a lawn with no grubs is irresponsible. What I would recommend for that date is to dig up a square foot of the lawn searching for grubs. If fewer than a dozen are found in that square foot, the homeowner is good to go. If he/she finds uncountable masses of grubs, then it's time to apply the insecticide. Grubs, by the way, can be anticipated if you had swarms of beetles around your porch lights in late May or early June. This is true north or south although the beetle and grub species are different. Fall All Season Mow at height of 3.5" Mow at height of 3" for last mow of fall, just before or just after the first frost September September 22 - First day to seed September 1 - September 23 - Fertilize with 3.75 lbs of Nitrogen October October 7 - Last day to seed November November 13 - Fertilize with 3.75 lbs of Nitrogen First: As I recall the summer temps begin to cool off in late August. Is that what your temp monitors suggest for that zip? Anyway the time to seed in spring is as early as practical when the summer heat breaks. Reason? Because that gives you time to redo it if necessary after you see the results. Second: Using the natural approach to fertilizing, the time to winterize is after the last blade of grass stops growing but before the grass turns brown. The idea is to get fertilizer into the roots such that new growth is not stimulated by the fertilizer. The final fertilizer should be fast release, high N. Lastly I notice you said nothing about watering. Watering is the single most important part of lawn care. As long as you have temperature charts built into this, the watering part should be a cinch. Here's what I have written about watering. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall.