Plant Sale shopper and volunteer Peg sent in these beautiful photos of her plants.

The native Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium) is tall and stately, with umbels of pink blooms on dark stems. (N046 and N047, $3.00) and three cultivars P440 - P442, prices ranging from $2.50 - $6.00

Hibiscus ‘Southern Belle’ P348 (originally bought for $1.50 — see, they really do grow up!)

Peg’s hollyhocks (Alcea) framed behind her gazebo. Old-fashioned cottage garden plants that tower over shorter plants — great for the back of the border. (P351 - P360, prices range from $1.50 - $6.00)

A nice combined planting with Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) left, Blanket Flower (Gaillardia) center, annual red Salvia in the foreground, and Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) in the background.

Thanks so much for sending in your photos, Peg!

If you’d like to share your photos with us, email photos@friendsschoolplantsale.com

Plant Sale shopper Michelle G. sent in these photos of some of her favorites from the Plant Sale.

The annual butterfly flower, Asclepias curassavica ‘Silky Deep Red’.

The perennial ornamental Feather Reed Grass named Avalanche, Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘Avalanche’. I’ve never seen this one in person…this photo from Michelle makes me understand why it’s so popular!

Lemon Gem signet marigolds (Tagetes tenuifolia ‘Lemon Gem’). Pretty cheery on a January day!

Annual bachelor’s buttons (Centaurea cyanus ‘Midnight’), specifically the color called Midnight. They’ve got fully double blooms, and as you can see, are a nearly black purple.

Bishop’s Children dahlia (Dahlia ‘Bishop’s Children’). I love that dark foliage with the peeks of orangey-red flowers.

The ornamental pepper Black Pearl (Capsicum annuum ‘Black Pearl’). While these are also edible, they’re usually grown for their foliage and colorful fruit.

Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia ‘Torch’). Tall and later-blooming, these giants as sparks of color to the summer and fall garden and attract butterflies and hummingbirds.

Thanks for the photos, Michelle! They’re very appreciated. If you’d like to send us photos of your plants, email them to photos@friendsschoolplantsale.com.

Here are a few photos of plants from the Plant Sale.

The vegetables in pots are mixed lettuce with bloodgrass (left) and Moskovich and Isis Candy Cherry tomatoes (right). I used the bloodgrass as an anchoring point; in the cool spring, colorful lettuce can be grown around it and harvested for eating. When the weather gets warmer and the lettuce starts to get unhappy and bitter (!) it can be replaced with annuals, or herbs (I used both). I think it’s a nice alternative to pansies.

Close up of the ripening Isis Candy Cherry tomatoes, with a green Moskovich visible on the left.

Japanese “Little Fingers” eggplant, also grown in a pot.

Bee Balm (Monarda ‘Raspberry Wine’)

Close up of Raspberry Wine. I really like it because the foliage has coloration like the bloom.

Rose glauca (Rosa rubrifolia) in hips.

Plant Sale shopper April sent in these photos of her cuke-nuts. Known by the obscure botanical name of Melothria scabra, cuke-nuts have been increasingly popular at the sale. From what April says, I can see why.

April wrote:

It’s a happy and busy little vine that loves to clamor all over my garden. It’s found a favorite spot twining itself around a nearby tomato plant.

The harvest has been good for just one small plant and is a hit with my three-year-old daughter. Next year I plan to buy more and plant them at the base of all my tomato plants. Thanks for all the work you do at putting on the sale. I’m already making my list for next year. I’d love to see some lingonberry bushes there. (Wink, wink!)

We’ll be looking into the lingonberry idea. In the meantime, if you’ve got garden photos, send them to photos@friendsschoolplantsale.com. We love to see them!

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to see photos of more plants from the Plant Sale? You can help with this project! We would love to have photos of your plants and gardens to put on this website and into next year’s catalog. For 2009, we plan to have more color pages with photos in the catalog!

In fact, we really need them, because otherwise we are limited to using photos we take ourselves in our own gardens and photos from the websites we have permission to use. And this supply of photos is dwindling.

We need both photos of individual plants that you bought at the sale and photos showing how the plants look in your garden, window box, or container. In fact, it would be great if you made a point of taking photographs in your garden this summer of both previous purchases and new 2008 plants.

We are more interested in practical photos that show the plant or flower clearly than in “beauty shots,” but either would be welcome! It’s not required, but we would also be interested in hearing about your impressions of the plants, both positive and negative.

There are various ways you can share your photos with the Friends School Plant Sale community:

1. If possible, email your full-size digital photos to us at photos@friendsschoolplantsale.com — we will take care of cropping them and making them the right size. If you know the name of a plant, that is definitely helpful but not necessary. In many cases, we will be able to recognize it. Let us know if you want your name with your photo or not.
2. If you have print photos, you can mail them to Friends School Plant Sale, 1365 Englewood Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55104.
3. If you are a gardener with a lot of Friends School Plant Sale plants in your garden but do not wish to photograph them yourself, email or write to us and we can discuss having one of our volunteer photographers take photos. Or let us know if your garden will be on a garden tour this year!

If you feel like sharing photos of what you got at the sale — either before planting it or after — please email them to us.

Here are photos of my haul. See if you can pick out the Anthole begonia. And I couldn’t resist the variegated Colorguard Yucca, which was a surprise addition at the sale (we had tried to order it, but the grower said it wouldn’t be available.. and then it just showed up!).

I also felt moved to bring home these two charming birds (vultures?) from Dick’s Designs. They’re keeping a careful watch over some gold-green hosta, Japanese Forest Grass, and a bunch of Rue Anemone. In the background are several Pink Spike Black Cohosh — man, those are going to be beautiful!

New gardener and Plant Sale shopper Susan writes:

Last year I planted my first garden with plants from your sale. It was fate–I had just visited the library for a book on planning a garden and the plant sale catalog was on a nearby table. I found a plan, made a list of plants and spent a very happy two weeks poring over the plant sale newspaper. As you’ll see from the pictures, my garden bloomed beautifully. These were taken in June, roughly 6 - 8 weeks after planting.

This year I’m planting a boulevard garden. I can’t wait for May 9th!

Thanks, Susan! We’ll be on the lookout for you.

Plant Sale shoppers Paulette and Sharon emailed a few photos to share. Thanks!

Paulette sent this Pink and White Showy Lady Slipper (Cypripedium reginae), U015, page 26. She says she planted it four years ago and it first bloomed in 2007. I’ll bet that was exciting!

Sharon sent several photos. First is round-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica americana) N099, page 32. This winsome woodland native might be blooming right now (although it may be a bit delayed with this year’s late spring).

Sharon’s second photo is of Golden Moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia) P494, page 17. I just added a bunch of this to my garden last year as well. It’s a groundcover that definitely spreads, but provides bright, attractive undergrowth in a range of light situations. Here, you see it juxtaposed in Sharon’s early spring garden with sweet violets.

Finally, Sharon sent this photo of one of her beautifully designed window boxes. At center is a Tuberous Begonia (Begonia hybrida), page 39. I especially like the juxtaposition of the lime coleus with the darker begonia and trailing million bells.

We’d love to see photos of plants you got at the plant sale. Send them to photos@friendsschoolplantsale.com. Thanks!

Years ago, when we first moved into our house and I started gardening, I envied my neighbor’s clump of Trillium grandiflorum which she’d brought back from The Lake. Since I shared the shade and leaves of her oaks, I figured I could grow them too.

I bought one plant, chose what I thought was a good spot and waited. The plant did not thrive. I added two more plants in different spots the following year. They did not thrive.

Some years later I noticed a small clump of healthy trilliums growing out of the bottom of my stone wall. I knew I hadn’t planted them or even thought of cramming a plant into what looked to be an inhospitable site. Squirrels! They’d planted the fruit/seed pods in exactly the right place; I was suitably humbled. (I’ve since learned that the seeds of trilliums are attractive to ants, who help disperse them by leaving seeds in their tunnels, where the seeds germinate, so ants might deserve the credit.)

Now I have many clumps of T. grandiflorum around the garden, and my habit is to plant them amongst good sized rocks, where they seem to thrive.

T. grandiflorum is the most showy trillium, and in my garden it self-seeds. The seedlings don’t look like the parent plant but show a single leaf, somewhat like a lily seedling or a broadish blade of grass; the seedlings do not appear until the second spring after dispersal.

Trillium erectum (left) and Trillium luteum (right). Both images are from the Wikipedia’s entry on Trillium.

T. erectum’s flower is not as large as T. grandiflorum but it is striking, usually dark red, and the plant makes large clumps. It is propagated easily by division and will also seed (although mine hasn’t).

T. luteum has an unusual yellow flower and handsome mottled leaves.

All these trilliums grow in deciduous woods in neutral to somewhat acid soil. Dig in leaf mold when planting. I top dress with compost in the spring and add a light mulch of shredded leaves. Some growers use a liquid 10-30-20 fertilizer to get bigger blooms. This can be done twice a year, as the shoots appear and then as the flowers fade.

These trilliums are available at this year’s Friends School Plant Sale (T. grandiflorum in the Woodland Wild Flowers on page 33, T. erectum and T. luteum in the Garden Perennials, page 21).

Try some, and bring home a bit of The Lake.

Plant Sale shopper Heather wrote in to make sure she was on our catalog mailing list, and sent along these photos from her garden. She writes, “I’m so excited for the sale I can hardly stand it!”

Thanks, Heather!

Heavenly Blue Morning Glory (Ipomoea tricolor ‘Heavenly Blue’)

Left: The very tall, old-fashioned annual Kiss-Me-Over-the- Garden-Gate (Polygonum orientale) and right: Clematis Comtesse de Bouchard.

We haven’t carried the Comtesse for several years, but it looks like we may have to bring her back next year!