Hi, I have Lemon Balm plants if you would like one. I would be able to dig it up and ship it to you near the end of April. It's still cold here yet. I could send a good sized clump if your interested. I could trade for each type of your columbine seeds. If your interested let me know. I know it's a bit of a wait to get the clump to you. Nina

Plants have their own body clocks just like humans. If it's time to sleep, then they'll sleep! You don't need to do anything special with a deciduous plant. In fact, almost all plants have a dormancy period. Some just make it more obvious than others. Even here in our very mild winters, most plants don't do any growing over winter, and many look a bit 'owsyafather, like the mints for instance. That's dormancy. Now, when you're asleep, how much eating and drinking do you do? Not a lot, I reckon. Same with plants. When dormant, they do not need feeding (fertilising), and if in pots they need just the barest minimum of water to prevent the soil from drying out - the plant won't actually drink at all until it's awake again. Often, when a plant is ready to become dormant, you can forcibly keep it awake for a bit longer. Eventually, however, prolonged enforced sleeplessness will cause it to become one very sick plant. As with humans. When using grow lights, you need to simulate the conditions outside. 18 hours of light per day is a long time, isn't it? Let it go to sleep overnight, eh? You can control Nature only to some extent. Eventually Nature will win any battles we humans inflict on it.

Yes I do Pam. I've been on daves over 7 years & 2 on plantswap. Before houzz took over gardenweb I was on it about 5 years plus the 2 years since it morphed to houzz. Another one is garden.org that I've been on about 2 years as tabbycat. Between all 3 I've probably traded 200 times in those years with wonderful people who, like us, love growing things & sharing. The postage has gone up in the 7 years so that's the only negative to me. Boy, but I have gotten some beauties by starting with small starter plants, cutting & seeds which are economical in the big picture. I don't have a phone that makes it instant to send pictures so I still do it the old way of taking a picture with a camers, downloading it to computer then uploading when I want to share it. I'm way behind on that at this time so that's another 2017 'to do'. It's tedious so I don't do it much. I do love to look at others though when I have time just to see the beauty. I'm also on Pinterest as Trudy B. if you want to check out my pins. Do you save things there? Have a great day, Trudy

Not the right place to post this** but since you are here, I am happy to answer ;) Lemon verbena is very tolerant to hard pruning....you can just whack it back as desired, however I would wait to do so until it is in active growth. I assume it is indoors now, so right when you take it outside for the season. ** Forum description: "This is the place to offer your suggestions and comments about GardenWeb. If you have an idea on how to improve the forums, or what businesses we should try to bring online, etc., this is the place to do it. "