Hey Houzz folks! An update on Apios! This year we have made our groundnuts available through our seed distributor Sow True Seed out of Asheville, NC. These are the Blackmon line from the LSU trials back in the 1980s and 90s. As we continue to develop an agriculture model for them, the price will continue to get better. This is a great perennial food that grows from Ontario to Florida and almost anywhere in the US. Great for homesteading and permaculture gardens. Great in containers. Beautiful miniature wisteria-like blooms. It’s a legume, so it fixes nitrogen as well. Native Americans shared this with great food with the pilgrims when their crops were failing and it helped them survive. If you’re a plant buff, you need this one in your garden. A 0.2 oz tuber yields 2.5 pounds in two growing seasons! Here’s the link: https://sowtrueseed.com/how-to-grow-groundnuts-apios-americana/

hi Jim, I am coming to your Green Elephant swap this year and I'm so excited to do so! I missed it last year, much to my distress. I am very interested in your angelica. I have some hardy bog plants (Pitcher plants of different types)that I can trade. I also am getting ready to divide some Pinguicula in the greenhouse if you are interested in something a little less hardy. I also have some flowering plum trees, the purple leaf/pink flower variety, that are a few years old but still small enough to pot and bring. I probably have some hostas too, and maybe some other trees. What are you looking for in the tree and hosta departments? I have many, many hostas. (a bit of a hostaholic,I'm afraid) Are you looking for small or tall? Also, what type of prairie plants are you looking for? I've got a number of different plants that could fall into that category - heleniums, echinaceas, penstemons, agastaches, some grasses. You can dmail me through Daves Garden or reply here. I'll check in on this thread. I'm interested in a couple of the angelica if they are not spoken for. Let me know if I have anything here that is of interest to you. Melissa

They can be very tough plants if you watch your watering. They do not like to be over watered as with most other plants. I use a good fertilizer with a capful of vinegar in a gallon of water and feed at every watering in a very porous mix. It has been consistently flowering for me since December. I let it harden off by slowly introducing it to the outdoors. It sits in at least 6 hours of direct sun. It seems to take temps beautifully when above the 50's and loves humidity. When temps drop below that, it just sits there, sometimes looking very unhappy and sulks. The flowering slows down and leaves will start to bend. I will say this though. The flowers DO NOT like getting hosed off with my faucet water since it is very alkaline. They turn brown the very next day as you can see. When the rains come and wet the flowers, they last forever though. Same holds true for gardenias. Here is a picture of one of mine in constant bloom and yet putting out more buds. Mike:-)

Franksmom~ our TS has tons of wood items. A lot of the time it's my one stop wood shop. ha I actually got this piece of wood from there for $1. It had something else painted on it...can't remember what now, but I just sanded it down and painted over the top. Way cheaper than I could have found the same thing at Lowe's or Home Depot. I've got quite a collection built up and some are cut into shapes already and most have hangers on them already as well. Luvs will tell you that I can sometimes see the vision of a wood cutout from one of my books or just make a little cut here and there to make it work for me. I love being able to cut my own pieces now! I'm about as slow cutting with my saw as I am painting, but it's really fun for me. Thanks kraftymom! Luvs....it was meant to be. ha Glad we could help each other out and form a friendship in the middle. ha It's nice to be able to share a love of painting and meet friends at the same time! We have a great group of ladies here!