free Stonecrop newsletter & fab seeds on the cheap

As most of you know, I help Stonecrop Gardens with their newsletter. Even though I'm an insider there, I think some of Stonecrop's latest offerings are worth sharing with our club.

Stonecrop Garden's latest newsletter is posted on their website (www.stonecrop.org) as a pdf. It seems like this issue has a bonanza of articles that provide substantive advice to gardeners, from native plants for the shade garden to Director Caroline Burgess's top plants for alpine troughs. Also included is the recipe for Stonecrop's alpine soil mix (heretofore a State secret) and instructions on how to make your own hypertufa trough. Please feel free to forward the newsletter to any one you think might enjoy it.

Also of note is Stonecrop's Index Seminum and Index Rarium. A great deal of time is spent each year collecting seeds from the myriad plants in Stonecrop's collection. For the past few years, they have been available for purchase by the public, with discounted prices offered to Stonecrop members. These are seeds for items you might never find elsewhere AND they are just $2 per packet, $3 for the very rarest of seeds. If you would like to review the extensive offerings, just visit the Stonecrop website (www.stonecrop.org), scroll down the menu on the lefthand side of the screen, and click on "Seminum/Rarium." Even if you don't order, the plant descriptions on the seed list are extraordinary, including well-chosen quotes from the likes of Graham Stuart Thomas and E. A. Bowles. Do not open the list unless you are prepared to be armchair gardening for a while.

Enjoy!