My son lives in Kentucky and truly loves to garden and would so interested in a swap. I looked on this board but could find no mention of Kentucky swaps. Just curious.

janet, that is a coincidence that we were there on the same day. I was there around 11 a.m. During that brief rainstorm that drenched everything! I actually had a bit of a laugh because they had to call one guy from the woody and shrub section to help me and they radioed him and they were giggling over his responses and I was wondering, "who is this guy that they all seem to have a crush on?" then this cute guy walked up, a young patrick swayze look-a-like, and I thought, "ah, that's the one." Sure enough, he was the guy that the girls at the front counter were swooning over. I pointed it out to my husband and he got a kick out of it, too. that's interesting about perennials getting marked down. when does that happen? We were happy with the 20% off on the japanese maple yesterday. the coral bark version is so pretty and it was just $80 with the 20% discount. we saw their stash of blue spruce trees that made US swoon, but the price tag was a bit too steep at $299 per tree. They were nice and large, around 7 feet tall, but very price ouchie at $299. Is there anywhere else to get blue spruce that size at a lower price? we wanted to plant a few of them on a hillside on our five acres.

I'll second Boone County Aroboretum as a "treasure." An absolutely wonderful institution, and quite unique. In Cincinnati we also have a world reknowned arboretum, Spring Grove, which is old and awesome, but Boone County is in some ways more useful and viewer friendly. It would not surprise me if BCA has a greater number of species already, and with much of it young you can get a great look at some of the plants before they get huge. Nursery wise, there are many good ones in the Greater Cincinnati area. Greenfield specializes in perennials, Natorp's and Sharon Nursery's are good full-spectrum nurseries. Marvin's Organic Garden's has a wide range of great stuff, a lot of it rare and unique. I think you'll find that this area of the midwest supports a surprisingly large pallette of plants, and, overall, that the seasons are nice. They each have their appeal. It helps to have a positive attitude when it comes to winter though. Books! A good primer is Denny McKeown's Complete Guide to Midwest Gardening. It would be a great place to start. He's the local gardening radio guru. Tracey DiSabato-Aust's The Well-Tended Perennial Garden is a very useful perennial book from an author 100 miles up the road in Columbus, Ohio. And Durr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs describes many temperate trees and shrubs, the vast majority of which can be grown here. Scott

What I meant when I said maybe it was a "northern thing" was, well, maybe soil temps are low enough there that seeds wouldn't sprout? That's never an issue down here. But then transplanting plants into that same soil wouldn't be that smart either. I am equally struck by the fact that someone would be selling such plants well before they belong in the ground. Yes, they'll probably survive, but in terms of level-of-effort, buying a pack of seeds would be a lot easier, and the cost per plant would be far lower. If you've been unsuccessful with planting bean seeds, you may need to take a hard look at what you've been doing. You plant them and "nothing happens"? Aack. Perhaps you planted them far too early? If conditions are decent, and soil as well, bean seedlings are almost indestructable and, as Dave says, you could practically grow them on concrete. Beans carry enough nutrient in their large seeds to make big, strong seedlings.