As usual, we're putting in a bunch of new perennials over the winter.  The unusual part is that over half of them are homegrown.  As I've mentioned previously, we set out five figs in late July, four started from cuttings and one from a rooted shoot found under our Chicago Hardy tree.  I didn't blog about it, but I also set out an Issai hardy kiwi at the same time, a bit later in the summer I planted out a couple of Poorman gooseberries from our nursery bed, and last week I transplanted five seedless grapes (Reliance, Thomcord, and Marquis) to their new homes as well.  Over half of these new plants came from cuttings a reader sent us --- thank you, Brian!

With so much bounty coming our way for free, my annual $100 perennial budget stretched in some interesting directions.  We'll be adding a new variety of red raspberry (Taylor) in the spring, and will be giving hardy kiwis another shot with an Anna plant from One Green Word, as was recommended by another reader.  Last year's store-bought apple rootstock (Bud 9) will be stooled this year and will let me graft new dwarf trees in spring 2015, but in the meantime, I bought another five rootstocks of a larger variety (M7), three of which will be grafted to new varieties, one of which will expand Kayla's orchard, and one of which will go into our nursery bed to be stooled in 2015.  Five OHxF pear rootstocks will be spread out in a similar manner (although I'll probably give Kayla two of those).  And, since I still had some cash left over in my budget, I splurged on two named varieties of hybrid hazels --- Jefferson and Eta --- since my previous hybrid hazel is from a few breeding generations previous to that.

So many exciting possibilities!  What are you adding to your perennial garden this winter?