Hey swappers, Are we going to let a little rain stop us? Heck, that's what the covered pavilion is for! Besides, the plants will love it and be much less stressed than otherwise. I'm getting plants together tonight, so I'll be ready to go tomorrow. I've got Indigo Spires salvia, "Blackie" sweet potato vine, Moonvine seedlings, a couple of luffa gourd seedlings, some dill, some *huge* fresh cuttings of my Peacock Rose geranium (which needed serious pruning!), a couple of very lanky Turk's Cap that I pulled out of dark shade, and probably other things I can't remember. Possibly some iris rhizomes, and some divisions of naturalized tazettas. And I plan to be there on time this time! ;-) Karen

Howdy from Belton in Central Texas. It's time to put on your happy face. This Saturday is our Fall Plant Swap. We'll be meeting at the most awesome site... the Bell County Master Gardner Greenhouse - behind the classroom. This is next door to the Scott & White Clinic. Providing that you bring a chair, we'll be sitting behind the classroom and using their tables for our plants. Many Master Gardeners will also be coming, so bring your gardening questions at the same time. This is a pot luck plant swap... so bring whatever you have. Please bring rooted plants and label them to the best of your ability so you know what you're trading. You'll be the expert on that plant since it grows in your own yard. You'll be sharing that information with others there. If you don't have any plants, don't let that stop you... bring some good potting soil, pots, seeds, tools and anything else that would cause a gardener to want to trade a plant for you item. You'll probably go home with more than you came with... it's just the gardener's nature to want to share. For those of you who use Gardenweb.com, you know it's all free. For those of you who aren't familiar with this site, you'll want to spend some time wandering through it. If you want to continue the visiting through lunch, bring something to add to the table: casserole, dessert, drinks, napkins, and so forth. Bring your good books on plants for Central Texas so everyone can look through them. We'll start setting up at 8:30am and probably start winding down around 1:30pm. By all means, bring a friend or kids. We'll have access to see the Demonstration Vegetable Garden and check out the Master Gardener's Greenhouse while you are there. You'll want to plan on coming back on October 21st to the Fall Plant Sale if you see something you want. If you post your name here, others might want to arrange a trade with you ahead of time. Once you come the first time, you'll want to come back for the next one. Watch out... you might make a friend! Time is short so get busy potting up those plants. By all means, please pass this email on to your other friends. If they'll write me back, we'll get them on a database so they'll get future invitations. Here is a link that might be useful: Directions to Belton's Master Gardener Greenhouse

Thanks for the info everyone. I've been watching the Central Texas Gardener for the last few days and tracked down the garden layouts from the Austin program. I'll try to piece something together from those maybe. Or if princealbert has some examples that would be great too :) My brother is on the South East part of town so I think we'll be dealing with clay as opposed to the 6" of topsoil. Did you have any stellar plants that you suggest I try jblaschke? I did notice that the Bell County Master Gardener Spring Sale is going on around the time I will be there so hopefully they will have some good ideas for us. I did check out the gallery but unless I'm missing something the galleries seem to be from all over the place as opposed to just Texas? I was hoping for some nice example photographs from the area. I'll follow up on the blog you suggested though. Thanks again!

Final tip about these...why let this thread stop at 35 or wherever we are now haha! Ericaceous plants are not hungry hungry hippos. Although they may tolerate and even appear to grow faster with regular feeding, my personal belief is it can be skirting disaster. Not going to go find an article connecting over-fertilization to root rot but I bet I could find >> 1. This genus, especially, really wants 'benign neglect'. Sure it would be different if you were growing, say, blueberries on sandy soil. In fact I just fertilized one of my blueberries that seemed to be lagging with a bit of ammonium sulfate, we will see if it perks up this year. Anecdotes and opinions are what they are but, the 2nd set of pics at the NCSU link above are of a hybrid strawberry tree in London. They are a feature of gardens there. In 2010 I saw a stunning one in Rye, a solid zone 9 town on the south coast of the UK, but later read at a gardening forum that it had died. I succinctly remember it had been underplanted with a lush assembly of shade perennials that SCREAMED 'we're being heavily fertilized'. The Cyclamen coum were already blooming and so big they looked like houseplants! So, house changes owners, new owner wants beautiful plants under their strawberry tree, fertilizes them and...bam...the water moulds loved the fertilizer, too! And took out the tree! So we can't be sure that's what happened, but something to be aware of. In almost 15 years I've fertilized mine no more than 2-3 times with scant amounts of Miracle Gro (no need for Miracid here, already incredibly acidic soil!) and it's done just fine. I've repeated it ad naseum, but the case of the Camellia 'Aida' in my garden and one very close by, grown by a PhD horticulturalist at Longwood...pretty conclusively proves to me the already known connection between too much nitrogen and a failure to harden for winter. First PV winter, mine had a tiny bit of scorching on the leaf edges, the one he was heavily fertilizing so he could size it up for breeding purposes died so dead it couldn't even come back from the roots! UPDATE: was reading an excellent page about the hybrid - I didn't know it seldom fruited but that makes sense. So it's a big trade off to lose the fruits I think! https://www.architecturalplants.com/product/arbutus-x-andrachnoides/