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Which plants would you want for free?
Kieran Wood
Posts: 67
in Plants
Hi all, This year I am launching a website that allows people to swap and sell seeds and plants. As part of the launch of this, I have grown several hundred lupins to give away free myself and would like to grow other things too. What would you recommend that I grow to get a quick crop before the end of the summer that you guys would be chuffed with to get for free. Ideally I'm growing things from seeds to keep the cost down.
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Hi Kieran, great idea for a site!
I've grown some lupins from seed for this year myself along with some hollyhocks. I've found them to be hardy and ready to plant out when the garden is. 
I also had great success with Zinnia's from seed last year too, I'm a budget gardener myself so rely on donations of cuttings, the rescue me shelf in garden centres and seeds to provide colour in my newly created garden.
Best of luck with the site, let us know when its up and running
Kieran, have you factored in the postage on " several hundred lupins"? They'll make pretty big plants , even in the first season.
Hostafan1 - first off I'm a massive hosta fan too and bought loads of giant hostas last year which I'm really looking forward to seeing this year.
I won't be posting all of the lupins, maybe just one or two it will mainly be seeds I will offer to post but I have other special things that I can post such as water lilies.
Great ideas, I knew someone else would come up with more suggestions than me, I'm just a beginner
hope you will keep us up to date with your progress Kieran
Nice idea, and will be interested to see your website.
Have you seen www.greenplantswap.co.uk ? Great idea, but probably doesn't yet have a critical mass of numbers.
Then there's various seed swap and growing groups on Facebook, as well as plants given away on Freecycle / Freegle, and sometimes on other websites like www.streetlife.com and www.streetbank.com
And the seed swapping thread here, and similar things on various other gardening and growing and allotment forums.
How do you see your plans fitting in with what's already out there?
The plant swap site - to me - is too complicated and doesn't really seem to have anyone actively working on it to promote it or encourage people to use it - it seems to have been forgotten and I agree no one is using it.
The seed swapping thread here is actually what inspired me to create the site - a lot of the posts go un-noticed or get buried so that is why I created the site. It's a dedicated arena for people to offer this kind of thing.
In all - my site has someone who cares about the project and wants to bring something of value to gardeners. I'm hoping it will be well received but if it isn't I have had a lot of fun making it and learnt a bundle of new skills. I'm only 24 and this will be my first attempt at a web business so it's exciting times and hopefully if everyone buys into it, it will become a freecycle specifically for plants and gardening items.
Plus - my site will have great competitions and give always (all funded from my own pocket) - I hope to see you all there.
This idea really appeals to me Kieran, as my name suggests, I'm a bit of a womble, but with you being 24 you may not know that a womble ' makes good use of the things that they find' as the theme tune states
everything in my garden is found or reclaimed and reused or made from pallets etc. Having a source of plant exchanges would enable us to experiment with seed growing and cutting takings and swap excess plants. I think you could build up quite a community of gardeners with this concept and look forward to taking part 
best of luck!
Kieran, I like your attitude and hope it all snowballs and you get the critical mass of numbers.
Great idea i am all up for websites like this for keen gardeners with little incomes I am happy to grow seeds and share but would find it difficult to post. Violas and primulas also foxgloves are easy. I love hosta's as I have a pond and a couple I cant remember the varieties.Am growing cosmos and love the white ones. but would like to grow frieesia from seed.