plant swap

was on the weekend. I took thirty-some plants, those pictured earlier: yellow salvias, echinacea, black-eyed susans, stonecrops, baby hellebores, the citronella cuttings, plus three young hollies and this one hickory sapling that grew out of a pot stored in my small greenhouse- must have been planted by a squirrel earlier in the season.

I brought home in return just over twenty plants. Most got hastily stuck in the greenhouse as I didn't have time to dig right away- this ostrich fern got planted immediately (it turned out to be one decent-sized plant and three much smaller ones)

making my little patch a bit fuller!

the rest had to wait. Some are still waiting. I did plant the two lyreleaf sage I got already

but most I am holding off on simply because a lot of these plants are new to me- I know which like sun and which prefer shade, but color and height and spread? I need to learn a bit about them. There's coreopsis rosea, Liatris spicata, a small herb called self-heal, Solidago rugosa 'fireworks', Little brown-eyed susan, one nasturtium and one (very small) New England aster. (I've tried to grow these asters myself from seed before, got small plants that disappeared soon after planting).

a plant called late thormwort (in the back here)- at least that's what the label says but maybe I'm misreading someone's handwriting. The internet suggests this is probably late thoroughwort, or boneset.

three or four obedient plants- which were bare root and badly wilted, but I stuck them in an empty pot of soil and watered well, they already perked up enough to poke through the wire shelf above

and two pots of 'Catherine Woodbury' daylilies, which I planted yesterday.