i live in winston salem

are any of you close to me?
michelle

Hi Michelle, I'm on the Davidson Co. side of Clemmons, approx 20-30 to Winston Salem depending on where. Did you just move here?

yeah, i moved here in september. I have meet a few gardeners here. One really close to you. Do you know Robin? She is very active in seeking out other gardeners. She has a great yard. She is in Lewisville. She is having a big plant swap in april if you wanna come.

My gardens are all in Mi right now. I am moving home from may to august to work and take care of my gardens then i will be back to stay here.

What kind of garden do you have? I would love to meet you. Im always looking for new garden buddies.

I have around 400 named var. of tb irises and hundreds of other perennials, shrubs, daylilies, etc...

No, don't really know other gardeners in the area, most folks my age aren't into it yet, and the one person I know that is into it is a former co-worker from NY.

My gardens are....different..lol, tropicals, arid plants, cottage stuff, veggies, etc. I have no problems inviting people over when their username ends in --girl (lol), but I always do warn people that the house is always a wreck and we are a little different (I don't think that's so bad)

lol, no but I was the one that liked the sound of the funky multi-colored shag carpet that chick had....

why, are you the one with the pink bathroom?

No, Tropicanna's the one that couldn't stand the thought of espresso in the bathroom. lol

You raised everyone's curiousity with that "we're different" statement, you know. lolol

I'd probably prefer that pink bathroom to the wallpaper in the main one at my place...and yeah, I still hope I win the sound deck for the GH.

When is Robin's plant swap? I commute from the beach to the mountains and go right through Winston Salem and Lewisville on highway 421.

I will be going up in April.I am also planning to stop at North Carolina Farms and buy some plug trays.Does anyone want to share?

I'd love to participate in the plant swap. I am near Clemmons--Winston-Salem address on the Forsyth/Davidson county line. We lived in Clemmons for 12 years in a very shady spot, so I grew hosta and oak trees. We moved not too long ago, and our yard has more sunlight, so I'm gardening more seriously. Would love to meet other gardeners in the area and learn from their experiences.

I think it is april 5th. I will double check. I believe its the 5th one she has held. The last one was pretty big with I think 70 participants. She has a cookout with it. I will get all the details to you all.

Hi everyone, Im new to DG. Live in Durham, not right around the corner from WS but I think it's about a two hour drive down I40. Tropicanna, have to ask your age group... since its not polite to ask age:-) I haven't meet anyone around my age that likes to garden...

Flowrgirl welcome to NC!

Ive never participated in a plant swap but I'm sure I could dig up a few goodies to trade and Id love to meet some other gardeners.

I'm a victim of the perennial: plant once, enjoy forever (well thats what I try for at least, lol).

Jenn

Thank you.

I did want to mention there's going to be a DG roundup (get-together & swap) in Asheville May 3:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/789409/

Jenn, I guess my BF and myself are at the tail end of Generation X, I 'm 30..we have a 7 year old daughter

Im 26, its really hard to find gadeners my age, not that it matters. All of my established garden friends are 50 plus. My very first garden buddies have been in there 80's. Both are passed now since they were in there 90's. They were both wonderful women and gardeners.

I am always on the hunt for someone my age but it doesnt matter to me.
michelle

Well, It sounds like a few of us younger gardeners have found each other right here... as I fall right in between at 28. Tropicanna - wow at 7 yrs old I am surprised you have time to garden, you must be one of those very organized people :-)
I have been gardening for many years now and though I have my family, I have never found many outsiders interested in going nursery shopping with me, something about they prefer clothing :-)

Duke Gardens will be having a plant sale... April 26th, if you have never been - I highly recommend it. They have some of the most wonderful plants from the garden that you can buy at very reasonable prices and they have vendors like Niche gardens and Pine Knot Shade all in one place with some of the best they have to offer. I blame Duke for much of my addiction... I found their plant sale about five years ago and since then I have gone every year!

OMG! I haven't been to Duke Gardens in ages! I was born in Durham and we used to go when we were very little.....plant sale sounds like major temptation.

lol..not organized at all, actually, just a consummate gardener. I'm kind of hyper so gardening gives me plenty of room to work it out physically..lol. Luckily my daughter's old enough that she is usually very busy on her own and would prefer not to be bothered by me.

If you're ever in the area, GardeningNC, send a dmail :)

Nice to meet some people in my age group. I would love to go to the duke plant sale. that would be fun. Never been. We will all have to get togher and go plant shopping not clothes shopping.

Tell me about your gardens. Fav plants, styles, etc....

I'll try to remember to mark the calendar for the Duke sale, I'm not the best at making plans, but it would be fun to go.

flowrgirl--gosh, pretty open-minded but I tend to lean toward tropicals since I grew up on the coast (Atlantic Beach). Plant Delights is just amazing the way they have landscaped, it looks great. I am a bit tired of a lot of the traditional stuff grown around here... roses, gardenias, hydrangeas, azaleas, hostas, etc...I know it's probably illegal to say that in these parts. Cannas, gingers, taros (elephant ears) and crinums are my big favorites. Bulbs are good here because they are so tough and can handle the clay without too much fuss. Recently I'm trying to learn more about native and xeriscaping plants. My yard is basically full of specimen plants, I don't have too many things there are more than one or two of.

...around here my favorite place in Myer's Nursery on Stratford Road...wonderful people and the prices will spoil you forever..lol. The do occasionally get more unusual plants but they really are reasonable.

Tropicanna - I envy you, I cant do tropicals inside so despite my love for them I just cant bring them into my home only to be killed by either myself or my animals. I do try with some of the more hardy varieties, EE and gingers. I have been to Plants Delights a few of their open houses, and it is beautiful.

Flowrgirl - my outside gardens are varied and probably lack any 'style'. but i have a fairly large rose bed and total about 7 bushes with 3 ready to pick up at Witherspoon. I have a few peonies, one tree peony (if i get it right Ill post a photo)- which is probably one of my favorites! I also tend to be more of a specimen gardener... I dont think I have more than one of anything that hasn't either multiplied and had to be divided or been handed down. My favorite is the small pond a wonderful gardening friend gave me, she was getting to the point where it was too much work and gave me everything except plants... Ive added goldfish, waterlilies, and marginals.

GardeningNC and everyone else geographically located or passing through -- don't forget NC Botanical Gardens. There is a small area (located near the bog plants) where the staff set out plants that are really really inexpensive. It is free to stroll the gardens (great garden areas and some great garden art shows) and the stands with the material for sale have many interesting and some hard to find choices. (PS - warning whenever I shop for new plants.....I come away with quite a few mosquito bites) -- no matter the time of day. Must be the bog areas. At any rate, not a lot of fun trying to decide on what to buy (the prices and choices really are really great) while dancing in place trying not to be a mosquito banquet.

I'm going to have to look all these up, we travel back and forth quite a bit and I know the little one has a break coming up soon and I want to head to the coast, might be able to make a stop or two.

There's a Bog Garden in Greensboro near the Arboretum there, I know that's non-specific, but it's really nice

I my self love pretty much all styles of gardens but hands down favorite are the gardens with roses, iris, delphiniums, foxgloves, peonies, bulbs, lilies etc. I am really a sucker for the pinks blues purples etc.... I do love the contrasting colors of oranges, yellows, purples and dark greens that are found in tropical gardens. I love elephant ears and other large plants like musa, gunnera, etc... I am however a cottage garden person. Lush and informal with tons of soft color.

My yard is kind of a mess because I am a compulsive plant shopper. Thanks for feeding my addiction with places to shop. I would have to say my yard has a lot of speciman planting. This year I hope to pull it a little more together. I have the plants to do it.

We will have to shop together!!!

http://www.insiderpages.com/b/3717245774

should get you to the broadwells nursery site in Angier. By far the least expensive nursery I have been to. Everything is in pots (large pots) but you have to go get and load your own. I paid 5-7 dollars for ~6 foot river birch. 2-3 dollars for large camellias, there are roses, big leaf holly, any kind of flowering shrub you can think of ..acres and acres...healthy too. Nothing is labeled so you have to know what you want. All sorts of trees, all sorts of scrubs. Azealas, hydrangea, Peonies, iris, etc., Bring a truck or a trailer. I hope the link works

This message was edited Mar 9, 2008 11:23 PM

enablers...wow..I thought I was bad

oh boy

Trop - not 'enablers'.....just trying to live vicariously through others!

PLUS it is soooo helpful when driving down the road with my hubby to see folks pass by with LOADS of goodies on trailers and in their cars and trucks. He doesn't feel as abused as he thinks he should.

I'm in Winston Salem... but I'm a 39 year old man though :)

I moved from Ohio just over a year ago (Go Bucks!) and got the gardening bug after moving in to a house with over grown gardens. There are a lot of trees around me so everything is pretty much shade/part shade. One of my favorite nurseries is The Briar Patch on Stratford Rd.

BTW, what's a plant swap?

You can be a man, we wont hurt you. Welcome to our discussion. You and I are city neighbors. Im in North Winston.

A plant swap is a gathering where people bring plants, potted up, bare root, bulbs, seeds, etc.... in hopes of trading with others. Usually you just set up your selections and everyone wonders around and trades plants.

The one on april 5th is a friends house. Here is the email she sent me about the swap. If anyone wants to attend just dmail me privately and i can send you directions.
Michelle

I would be most pleased if you could attend. Please
email me with any questions, and please introduce
yourself and tell me all about your garden. Here is
the link to my trade list
http://www.gardenweb.com/members/exch/quirkpod
Robin McBride

You are cordially invited to our plant swap Saturday
April 5th from 12 noon to 2PM-ish. Please bring
outdoor plants and houseplants (actual rooted plants),
and place them on the trading tables. Then take
whatever you want. No limits.

missingrosie - thank you, I always forget about the NC Botanical Gardens out by UNC, I tend towards Raleigh/Wake co. on my plant outings. There are so many great places near here, i tend to forget some of the smaller great ones.

kcbronc - welcome! I must say I had never heard of a plant swap either, than I joined DG :-) I am hoping I will make it to my first one this year.

tropicanna - we are not just enablers we are support for a growing and shared addiction :-)lol

flowrgirl - I am right there with tropicanna - i am not great at making plans but I would love to make a great attempt at being there (Ill attempt the dmail thing) I think we might feed each others addictions... almost every plant I own has a purple or pink bloom :-) I love the purple Iris you have... mine are all much darker, we may have to exchange at some point. Mine are hand me downs - so I probably rescued it from a compost heap thus I have no names for the majority of bulbs I have ended up with. Actually I think thats been one of the fun things about rescuing, you never know what your going to get.

Gardening: Try kiefer landscaping and nursery. (Huge pond with the fish swimming right under the bridge you are standing on (fun for the kids) And, you can feed the fish for a quarter or a nickel. Lots of outdoor gardens with water features and also lots of inventory (at least that was the case last year -- it has been around for 20 years so hopefully has escaped the drought/losses that too many nurseries a have succumbed to. ) It is right smack dab in RTP about 5 min from hwy 55 and the parkwood area. Also don't forget the huge nursery going down Hwy 55 in Apex. Just about the time I left Durham (for Hillsborough) there was a nursery opening --huge outdoor inventory of trees/shrubs and flowers. Lots of unusual specimens not found everywhere. There was a house on the property used as a shop for garden art. I think it was down 751 about a mile or two after you cross over 54. If you are interested, I can find out the name and if still there. My favorite small place in durham was run out of the Durham Hardware Store on Guess road. It closed and just recently I learned the gal that ran it reopened soon after (!!) (no advertising I guess) on Hillsborough Road extention right near Bennett Point/Sparger Road.

Im trying to get better with plans. I write it down on my planner and circle the date to make sure. When its something really fun I make sure to work around it. I have been getting pretty good with planning which i am really proud of myself for. Im one of those procrastinators who does it with everything including planting. I have killed many plants because i put it off to long or just didnt finish a job in the garden. Dig stuff up to move and never move it.

Im really trying though.
smiles
michelle

missingrosie - I actually use kiefer for almost all my hardscape products, like mulch, dirt, rocks, and aquatics, as they have one of the best selections around. They have gotten so used to seeing me they even let me bring a dog along to visit... so long as i make sure the dog does not do any harm - which I would never allow or would pay for or fix any damage. It sounds like you know this area very well, did you live in Parkwood? I am very close to it. The name of the other that you are talking about is For Garden's Sake (I think), its the one with all the animals wandering around? I will have to check out the other one on Hillsborough Rd, I dont get to that side of town very often. I am still trying to get out to Niche gardens as well- I have heard wonderful things about their gardens. This weekend I will be in Raleigh at Logan's, no gardens really to speak of but if you ask they will probably have in most of the more standard southern plants sometime during the year... just got a Sargent Professor or Professor Sargent camellia there, they even helped me id it... I only had a flower I had found on a bush at an abandoned house and hadn't had time to try to id it myself. They also have an old time train station style lunch counter with great burgers.
If you are ever looking for company on some of your adventures, we are probably not too far from each other.

flowrgirl - I understand! When I moved into my current house I had to move all my plants from my last house... it was going up for rent, tenants would have killed them all... as they have my fringe tree that I left there, thought that since it was a tree it would be ok, but they decided when the leaves fell off to cut it back! I am heart broken every time I drive by, it is trying to hold on but its such a mess. Sorry, had to get it out. I have been more careful with some of my more prized and expensive plants but I lost quite a few in my moves due to procrastination, what do you know plants don't like me leaving them in a pot with little to room or water lol. I am also trying to get better about this... I send them to my mom's to care for until I can put them in the ground :-)

Garden:
Kiefer is our choice for the hard stuff too. But we left a few messages and no return call a few months ago. (They owe me a few plants from a job they did and maybe they think I want to collect at a very bad $$ time for landscapers) They gave 150% (and more) so I figured I'd forget about those plants. I took my son to Parkwood day care - we lived then in Stirrup Creek. (Bethesda) Then we moved to Hope Valley Farms then to Hillsborough. I think maybe we are 30 min from each other now. I have an edgeworthia - just getting started but already in bloom - you could have if you are interested, and I am pretty sure I am pulling a cotoneaster or two and saint john's wort, etc. If you are interested - let me know.

For the camellia at a realllly low price - Broadwells - Angier - but I can't say you'll know what variety you will have 100% of the time unless it is in bloom. Acres and acres of all kinds of shrubs and trees (you need a car to shop there). Also, do make it to the nursery in Apex - it's worth the trip and right down the road from you.

Flowrgirl - don't forget the farmers market in Greensboro. I got THE BEST lantana there in a fantastic bright bright red - like a chinese red. Next to the purple lavender it is stunning and it tumbles over the bank into the stream. Looks great. And, if you like japanese maple trees - a great selection --plus there is a great restaurant at the market - homestyle (ie: bad for you) (but you are young!) and of course all the homemade jellies and honey and fruits and veggies typical of a farmers market. Our Raleigh farmers market (especially the Briar Patch stand) has great healthy plants and offers scented geraniums for just a few dollars each. You can get a catalogue from them and if you want something, you could have it waiting for you there. I promised someone on DG once, I'd send them a catalogue and lost the info and it still bothers me that I didn't follow through. I know Raleigh is a hike for you ..but Winston Salem must have a farmers market too, no?

hey rosie..I know you were addressing flowrgirl, but the Greensboro market is for the whole Triad area, including Winston-Salem

hi kc, I haven't been to the Briar Patch in awhile, I noticed they have a like a little cafe now

there's a place on Clemmonsville road right at the intersection of Peters Creek....can't remember the name, but it's a family-owned place (the owner said they had been open for a long time). I stopped by this winter when everything was pretty dormant, but I was surprised at how much stuff they had..you'd almost miss it because it looks like another house in the neighborhood

I plan on hitting up the greensboro market soon. I love all the produce and home made jellies etc...

They do have some nice things...Myer's has totally spoiled me though. I have to check there first before I buy anything..lol...
I've picked up quite a few plants there that Plant Delights sells for just a few dollars...large sized plants.

gosh, the last thing I really need is more plant shopping now. I winter sowed a bunch of different seeds, and then I just found this awesome seed site...lol. Today I went through all my bulbs stored in the basement...lost a lot because I didn't water enough

rosie I know keifer has been one of the ones hit hard but still surviving, they cut back on in stock plants and have been more focused on hard scape products. I know parkwood very well, thats a good daycare always had a good reputation. We were in the same area, as I went to Jordan hs. I love meeting old and new neighbors :-) Wow, I was just admiring the edgeworthia at PDN and debated about spending the money, I would love to take it off your hands. I dont know the cotoneaster, I will need to look that one up before giving it a try. Thank you! I have some Japanese Toad Lilly that has got to be split, it loves the spot it is in now but Ive got to move some of it, it's gotten huge over the past five years. I have a nice patch of mexican petunia Id be more than happy to raid and could probably 'pull up' a chinese ground orchid if you would be interested. Flowrgirl/Tropicanna/kc if ya'll would be interested in the Japanese toad lilly... Id be happy to share. I always have columbine plants and seeds if anyone would like any, no guarantee on color though:-)

I would love some toad lilly.
michelle

flowrgirl1: Please update your profile so we know you're now in NC and not MI. I lived in that frozen, arctic wasteland for 8 years and hope I never return :-P. Listen to Tropicanna - she's really smart and also cute even though she's a bit hyper :-D.

Checking out your local farmers' market (they have one in the Triad area) is a good idea... the one we have here in Raleigh often has really nice plants for a much better price than the fancy nurseries or big-box stores.

I'll give them a call then. Wanted a load of dirt. Getting the compost from the county dump - it is the best stuff - crumbly and fragrant- and inexpensive. Get a pickup truckful. Can get the mulch there too. But I like kiefer dirt and the staff too. I wanted to help them if I could.

The deer eat the petunias and not sure about the orchid or lily but sounds mighty tasty ;0) Would hate to have you disturb and waste. You just let me know when you want to get the edgeworthia. Until then I'll leave it in the ground. I pulled a few stalks from the bottom of the main shrub and jammed in the ground and it worked just fine. Had flowers this year. So fragrant. The cotoneaster are fussy about transplant but for some reason, these have done well through two moves. I think they look better near a boulder - love them in bloom too. But a hard plant to have look comfortable in the garden. Find the right spot and it will reward you. Anyway give a holler or d-mail.

Trop - I thought Winston might have its own farmers market. Looking forward to ours expanding here in Hillsborough. Whole Foods might help with that. Maybe take some of the fresh eggs and beef, honey, etc. Carrboro is set to grow too. Our vendors have such healthy plants and foods and well made crafts. Not too much greenery but what is there is healthy and I think fairly priced for the quality. And, everyone is so nice too.