Gardening is a wonderful way to grow your own food, beautify your yard, help wildlife and simply connect with nature, but it can get expensive. Gardenweb's Garden Exchange makes it a lot easier.
On the garden exchange forums, users arrange trades of plants and seeds that they have for ones they're looking for. There are exchanges set up for seeds, plants, roses, specific types of plants, winter sowing and more -- and even garden tools and books.
How does it work? Members post to the forums, listing either items they have to trade or items they are looking for (or sometimes both). For instance, recent titles are:
HAVE to trade:.......... Orange Daylily.... common/ditchlily
My Extra seedlings for your extra seedlings
Stuff I Have 4 Trade + Some Freebies
WANTED: Elderberry seedlings
Plants are generally sent bare root, with roots wrapped in a damp paper towel and then enclosed in a plastic baggie to keep them moist. Be sure to read proper care instructions here. Since bare root plants are light, it costs around $3 to ship the plants via priority mail.
How do you get plants to trade? You probably have plenty right in your own yard. Many perennials benefit from periodic thinning, for instance, and plants with tubers like irises are especially easy to dig up and divide. You can also look for "volunteer" seedlings in your yard. Those tiny lilac sprouts near your hedge might be nuisances to you, but you can carefully dig them up and they'll be quite desired by someone else.
If you're starting out with a bare yard, there are still options to find plants to trade. One way is to volunteer to thin someone else's overgrown plants, such as an elderly neighbor's or relative's. You can also try Freecycle or Craig's List. Though it's not generally recommended, you can also try offering up something besides plants. I once had someone offer me homemade chocolate chip cookies!
Also, occasionally gardeners will offer seeds and plants free if you send a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) or SASBE (self addressed stamped bubble envelope). It is against the forum guidelines to ever ask for freebies, though.
The Gardenweb site has full instructions on the best way to package and care for your plants, plus everything else you need to know.
I've done quite a few swaps through Gardenweb, though it's been a few years since I was very active. My husband loves irises and I put up a post asking for all different colors, offering rooted sections of my "bulletproof roses," spearmint and white irises (which we had in abundance) to trade. I've also traded for roses, flowering vines, seeds and much more. There were a few that didn't work out (generally because people did not follow instructions on how to mail them safely) but for the most part it was always a great experience.
Most swaps on Gardenweb are for anyone in the US but there are also Canadian swaps and regional ones. For instance, the midwestern swap for Minnesotans is here, but it does not appear to be very active. I have always just used the general swaps.
It can be tricky to mail plants during the heat of summer, especially for people in some regions. The exchanges are busy all year round and some people wait until things cool down to do a lot of their trading. Check back periodically and with a little luck you'll have more plants than you know what to with.
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