As the rain pelted us and beat down the plants in our gardens, we had plenty of opportunities to acquire ever more. It’s the first question after an outing:
What did you get?

OK, so here goes: first up, Gardenpalooza, which I posted about here. I used amazing restraint at this sale. Both of the plants that I purchased were tiny and came from Wild Ginger Farm. Since the Lewisia I got from Ryan performed swimmingly in a difficult spot I went for this one, ‘Rainbow’, for the orange sherbet color of the flower (which even looks kind of arty in this out of focus shot).

I’m hoping that this little Saxifraga crustata, with its frosted looking edges, will do equally well.

As we all get to know each other better and new plant nuts join us, our garden bloggers’ plant swaps get to be more and more like parties. I’ll post about the party later, but here’s what came home with me. More or less clockwise from the upper left, starting with two wonderfully good-sized hostas from Loree, which filled in a spot that I had been scratching my head over. A Canna with colorful foliage from Heather will overwinter in a pot until I decide where to put it. Also from Heather, three Penstemon ‘Dark Spires’ supplement the one I bought earlier that seems to be performing well along the fence line. It goes so well with the stalks of the Joe Pye Weed there. Anna brought me some things that we had prearranged, like the two Rosa rugosa ‘Alba’ and a goatsbeard that is hidden in there somewhere. Then I made a greedy grab for her two snowberries as well (Anna says these did not come from her. Who can I thank?). In the midst of the free-for-all, I failed to identify where the false hemp you see in there came from (Loree says Megan). next to it, in the carrier, are four little grape vines Anna convinced me to grab (not that it was a hard sell). That ‘Steroid Giant’ may be from Megan (yes), but you can see how we lose our manners in the heat of the moment, so I don’t know for sure. In the center of this shot are a couple of Phyllostachys atrovaginata (wrong, they’re Sasa vietchii), a plant I have been wanting for some time (Anna seems to have the inside track on such things). Kate did a very convincing job of “selling” the plants she brought. I came away with Viburnum ‘All That Glitters’ from her. This group comes up with fabulous stuff to trade. What a way to experiment with things you’ve always wanted and some things you’ve never even heard of.

Think I had my work cut out for me? You would be right, but hot on the heels of the swap came the ‘Tough Love’ sale at Cistus. I’d missed it before and was not about to let that happen again. It’s a parking lot sale of plants in need of some TLC at drastically reduced prices. It’s great, because it encourages risk-taking behavior. I’ve been reading about plants that became favorites after having been nursed back to health. At these prices, the occasional loss is no big deal. Quite a few of these are things I had never heard of. I ran into Loree at the sale, and even she could shed no light on the plants in question. Staggering our way from left to right, we have: Convolvus cneorum, a shrub morning glory with year-round silvery foliage; lying on its side is Salix rosmarinifolia with no further info, but the leaf shape is lovely and I assume it enjoys the same conditions as other willows; Salvia leucantha is pretty much an annual, but I will see if it survives on the porch through winter. If so, it’s a plant that brought traffic to a halt in my former garden; a NOID shrub has the red foliage I want more of; Abutilon is one of those things I kept threatening to add; Orixa japonica ‘Jack Frost’ is looking pretty rough but the description of the zone 5 shrub was irresistable; rootbound Olearia x scilloniensis is a gamble, but isn’t that what this is all about?

The skies cleared for a brilliant weekend plus. The ground was nice and spongy. Believe it or not, all of my swag is either in the ground or potted up and tucked away. I should be sated by this glut of plants until springtime rolls around, right? Um…anyone up for a visit to Xera?