Ok, I have to say I agree with the original post. This has actually been on my mind a lot this week - one of my magazines came in the mail and it had an article on poisonous plants that really freaked me out. I have foxglove everywhere - it grows naturally all over my 5 acres and has self seeded extensively in the gardens right by my house, deck, patios, etc. I always knew it was toxic but kept it because it's so darn pretty, but then I read that ONE NIBBLE of ANY part of the plant would kill an adult. I had no idea - I'd pictured an upset stomach at worst. I have a young toddler who is very well parented, well taught, and constantly watched, and yet he is still a toddler. If you have ever had one, especially a busy one like mine, you know that no amount of teaching can guarantee that a very small child won't put something in his mouth. If my son is feeling especially rambunctious he might pop a rock in his mouth just to vex me. What if he popped a leaf in his mouth? I'm pulling them all out during his naps this week. It's a huge job, but I don't want the risk. Anyhow, I would have appreciated a little disclaimer somewhere letting me know just how dangerous these plants are... I guess I didn't buy them, but all the same... Happy gardening!

If anyone is still considering coming to the swap, but hasn't made up your mind, please consider this a golden opportunity to load up on premium plants. Jan and Jim's campground is beautiful and the drive this time of year is too. You won't regret coming for a minute even with gas prices what they are now. The cost of a tank of gas would pay for how many plants at a nursery? You'll bring home lots more than that, and meet so many nice people, you'll be hooked and will kick yourself time and again if you have to miss one of the future swaps. Ask any of us swap veterans who have had to miss one. Look at the lists of plants others have promised to bring. I see some on amazindirt's list you'd never discover at any nursery and I am sorely tempted. You will be too. Please come! Katie, I'm sorry you're not going to be able to make the fall swap, but I'll look forward to seeing you in the spring. Jeff, If you hadn't just admitted it I'd have never guessed either you or Lavonne were over 40. isn't it amazing how our calendar age and mental age doesn't jive? When I look in the mirror, I see an aging fat woman, but still feel like that younger one who gulped if the size 7's were too tight! Still, I know a heck of a lot more about gardening now than I did then, and can still do a lot of digging in the dirt without collapsing, so that makes it all OK. I'm bringing mostly "free plants". Sure I'll trade if there's something I just can't live without, but my garden has limited space, and that is now at a premium after loading up on plants at the previous swaps! I'm hoping there'll be lots of newcomers who will go home and fill up their gardens as I have, then will be able to share their divisions in years to come.

LOL..I had experience at my old house digging up 4 oclocks. I think I got a 4'root that was shaped like fat legs of a man. I had three huge plants like that and a multitude of babies. I kept at it and finally succeeded. There are some nice native 4 o'clocks that are better behaved. I am sitting here wondering about Salvia chiquita. It is new in the trade (8 years or so) and in my yard, I am starting to think it is enterely TOO Happy. THousands of seedlings this year.Years ago, I was unaware of the invasive list when I planted ruella ( maybe it was not on it yet) at my old house and same with the tahitian bridal veil. they both took over good. I whish I had known that there was a list to get information from 30 years ago. I think I would have made some different decisions. I sold that house. I weeded it to peices before I left but I went back and yes it is back.I am a lot more careful now. I am taking the salvia to a plant swap with warnings to keep an eye on it. It is not on the list, but is it only a matter of time I am afraid. Maybe people in clay will have a different experience. I backed the salvia off away from the slope...Same with the Roman Chamomile. I am looking sideways at both now and feeling maybe this is the year that I start yanking. I googled for info on the net and I have not seen the salvia mentioned. I do know that California has problems with some invasive salvias. They have the wet winter dry summer rythm. It seeds out in dry winters and wet winters, just a lot more on wet winters. If there is someone out there that has experience with this in the central Texas canyon land area and has some thoughts about the seeding habits of these plants.

The soil gets better every year if you're amending it as you should....and the gardener gets better every year too. It all works together. : ) Here in OK the thing that throws the wrench into the works and gums it all up is the weather, because we never know when we are planting exactly what the weather is going to do for the next 6 or 8 months---it could be drought and no rain for 3 months or it could be flooding rains, 12" of rain in one day and 24" in one month. How in the heck can any gardener plan ahead and be prepared for all that? I stay out of feed stores during baby chick time or else I'll bring home chicks we do not need. They are too little, too cute, too fluffy and just too adorable to ignore. The last time we were in Atwood's they didn't have chicks in the stores yet, but I figured that for sanity's sake I need to stay out of Atwoods for the next couple of months, and TSC too. Rebecca, You probably are on track with your succession planting, but with snow peas/pole beans it might be a little tricky. I like to plant pole beans early---before the peas are done---because we get so hot here so early that my pole beans need to flower and set beans in May in case the heat is about to crank up too hot in June, which often happens here. If only the weather were perfectly predictable. My English iris, ornamental alliums, red hot poker and some daylilies (but not all) have been up for quite a while now---maybe a month? The daffodils were really late, and some of the daylilies aren't up yet, but I really think that is because of the lack of moisture. The recent rainfall should help with that. The autumn sages are leafing out, so I need to cut them back soon. Most of the reseeding herbs and flowers are no shows so far, but I saw the first couple of larkspur (sprouting in a pathway, naturally) a couple of days ago. I am thinking everything likely will just explode now that we had some rain. I hope Travis Meyer is right about Spring. I'm never going to be unhappy about an early Spring because I dislike Winter's cold so much. The incredibly, horrifically invasive pink evening primrose plants are popping up all over the front half-acre, and in the garden. I pull them out of the garden the minute I spot them. I am considering hitting the ones in the pasture with a herbicide. Yes I am! One plant gives you a million more and they invade everywhere. I got rid of them in the drought years of 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014...but they staged a remarkable comeback in 2015, 2016 and 2017's wetter weather. I cannot stand them. If you let them grow and reseed as they will, that's all you'll end up with in the end. I might keep them if they'd crowd out Johnson grass and bermuda grass---but they do not---they just happily coexist with it. Do you have any idea which parts of Fort Worth they're looking at? Maybe by direction, like North, South, East or West? The DFW metroplex has grown so very huge (7.23 million people) and Tarrant County's population so large (1.8 million I think and I am not sure how much of that is Fort Worth proper and how much is the suburbs that surround it) that it is hard to talk about parts of Fort Worth, as many people now buy homes in developments in the many suburbs that ring the city. Most people who move to the area try to choose a nice neighborhood that will be a decent commute to their work so that they don't spend an hour or two commuting each way each day. So, if you can tell me where their new place or places of employment are located, maybe I can point y'all in the direction of the great places nearby to live. And, I want them to be forewarned, it is a seller's market and homes are selling fast and at inflated rates, so if they want to buy, they need to pre-qualify to know their price limit and find a great real estate agent. Many of our friends who once lived in Fort Worth have fled to the outer, outer, outer suburbs as it all has become too urbanized for them in their former neighborhoods. Some have fled north almost to Denton, to north towards Denton and then west towards Decatur and the like. Others have fled very far south---farther south than Burleson and perhaps as far southeast as Mansfield. My niece tries to keep me up to date on what's what in terms of the neighborhoods and housing developments, and it shocks me when she mentions a neighborhood that was perfectly lovely and highly coveted when we left Fort Worth in 1999, and she tells me it has gone downhill and is now "ghetto". I guess nothing remains the way we remember it once was. If Saginaw and the area northwest of it are near their place of employment, there's tons and tons of new housing developments and new shopping centers going up there---for at least the last 10-15 years, and the growth is never-ending. It used to be Denton was considered a long drive from Fort Worth and too far to move to live, but now people tell me Denton isn't far enough away. I think much depends on whether they want to love in a highly developed neighborhood with lots of homes close together, etc., or if they want to move further out and had a half-acre or acre lot or even more. The weather was gorgeous here today. I trust it was gorgeous where y'all are as well. It was a little wet and muddy, but that won't last long. It actually was nice to see puddles for once. Of course, we had a fire. Remember how I told y'all that when rain falls in a bad fire year, it can make things worst? It sort of did that today. Some vehicle on I-35 had a tire that was coming apart and a piece of flaming hot tire landed in tall grass beside the road and set the grass and trees on fire. This occurred less than 12 hours after our rain stopped falling and it happened maybe a half-mile from our fire station. I was wondering if the ground was muddy enough for the brush fire trucks to get stuck, and suspected it probably was. The answer, apparently, was yes, and I learned that when one firefighter was yelling "stop, stop, back up, back up, you're gonna get stuck" to the fire truck behind him. Sitting at home listening to him holler made me grin---not because I wanted for anyone to get stuck, but because it is just so predictable. So, now that we have had rain, the fires will continue on because dry, dormant vegetation reminds dry and dormant, and the fires will be harder to fight off-road because of the mud. As my son would mutter sarcastically "Great, just great." One thing that was odd(in a good way) today was that it was so warm that the songbirds did not have to spend every minute of every day eating nonstop in order to stay fueled up and warm. I didn't have to refill the bird feeders until almost sunset. The stores near us still have all the typical cool-season transplants on the shelves, but also more herbs that I think of as needing slightly warmer weather...and quite a few tomato plants. This was the first week I saw tomato plants, and I won't remember all the different varieties I saw, but among them were Early Girl, Better Bush, Roma, Better Boy and maybe Beefmaster or Big Beef. Most were the smaller transplants that cost $3.48 or $3.58 in 3" peat pots, but the Early Girls were larger and cost $5.88 in what was probably either a 5" or 6" plastic (not peat) pot. They also had flats of pansies. Last week they only had violas. I bet next week they'll have flats of petunias. It follows a fairly predictable pattern here. We only went to Wal-Mart and didn't go across the road to see what was at HD because their plants come on the very same trucks from BP, I think, and they tend to get the same plants in at the same time. Exactly the same, but sometimes HD does have pepper plants in about two months too early---and earlier than Wal-Mart does. It was ridiculous to stand there and look at those big monster plants, all of which could eat my tiny tomato seedlings in one gulp. It doesn't make me wish I'd started mine earlier---because our soil is still far too cold for tomatoes. I believe I started mine at the right time for my area given my weather and soil temperatures (even with the recent warm-up). I might feel differently if the soil temperatures start hitting and staying in the 50s while my tomato plants are still 2 or 3" tall and wide. Gardening is an imperfect science. I hope people didn't see those tomato plants and automatically assume it is time to buy them, take them home and plant them because we have some freezing nights in our forecast around mid-week. Dawn