A Great Way to Get New Plants

If you are like me and are always trying to find economical ways to improve your landscape and gardens then you should consider visiting a plant swap. Coming up next Saturday at Henry Horton State Park in Middle Tennessee is one such opportunity. The folks over at the GardenWeb: Tennessee community organized a plant swap that meets once a year in the spring. This year it's on May 17th. They have been swapping plants for several years now but this will be the first year at Henry Horton. If your garden plants have increased and you've made divisions or, like me, you enjoy the propagation path then bring some of your increases to trade for plants you don't have. You can even bring garden knick-knacks like bird-houses, garden-art, garden tools, craft items, or any other item another gardener might want to trade. I have never been before but I am looking forward to going and trading with other passionate (obsessive) gardeners.

There is also a guest speaker who will be talking about drought tolerant perennials and annuals. That is valuable information that many gardeners have on their minds these days.

There are a few things you should know before you go.

• You need to register! This way they will know how many people are coming.
• You need to bring plants. If you have extra daylilies, hostas, heucheras, vegetables, seedlings, seeds, or any other plant related item to trade bring them! If not they say to come anyway and there might be some leftovers.
• Bring tables and chairs for sitting in and displaying your trade materials.
  
• Bring food for a pot luck lunch, enough for you and your compatriots.
• Bring bugspray since it will be in the woods. Unless of course you and the mosquitoes get along well (They really like my wife).
• Bring a pen and paper to keep track of your trades and those you trade with.

You can look all these things up at the Middle Tennessee Plant Swap Website.

Here are some of the plants I'll be bringing: Japanese dappled willow, Russian sage, Salvia nemorosa, purple leaf plum, blue spruce sedum, and maybe a red twig dogwood.