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The Morristown-Hamblen Library’s Seed Swap return was met with great success.

The swap, hosted in the library’s front meeting room, aimed to give fellow gardeners a chance to share planting secrets and swap spare seeds with others.

As gardeners entered the meeting room they were greeted to a table filled with flowers, vegetables, fruits and herb seed. There were also iris bulbs of all colors available for planters to choose from.

The library also invited experienced gardeners to attend to help answer questions about gardening and give advice.

“We’re very excited to bring this event back,” Rita Wood, Circulation Specialist, said “We had a seed swap years ago, but Shelly the director came to me months back and asked if I would host one and I researched it and here we are. This is the first of many and we hope to come back next year.”

The community was also excited for the return of the swap; a group of gardeners were waiting outside the door.

“There was a mob of people waiting outside before we opened waiting to get in and I told them let me set up and they could go wild,” Wood said.

As gardeners went around the table picking new seeds they also placed down spare seeds they hoped other gardeners would enjoy.

“We started with some that the library donated, and people at the library donated and as people are coming in they are dropping seeds they had laying at home because seed packets have hundreds of seeds and most people only use a few in their gardens.”

“I bought a seed packet from the store the other day and it said it contained 5,000 seeds and I said I definitely have some to share,” said April Bryant, Morristown Garden Club member.

The Morristown Gardening Club was also present to talk about their new organization and donate seeds.

“We brought some seeds to support the library and this amazing event,” Betta Alton, president of the Morristown Garden Club.

The club is new to Morristown and meets every fourth Thursday at Rose Center. Each month the club mingles with local gardeners and has guest speakers give gardening tips.

“We are very new, this is our third month meeting and you know we just talk about our love of gardening,” Alton said. “At our first meeting we talked about winter sowing and how to maintain your plants during the winter and this month we will be talking about composting.”

The club has grown since its first meeting with new faces attending each month. Alton hopes to grow even further.

“The first month we only had around 10 people come, but last month we had more than 20 show up with a lot of enthusiasm about growing plants.” Alton said. “I’m always out and about pushing our club to recruit more gardeners.”

The club is just starting up, but it has big plans for the future to keep an eye out for.

“We are hoping to have a plant sale sometime this summer to raised money for our club and also encourage more people to start gardening,” Alton said “We are also redoing the herb garden at Rose Center as a project and once it’s done we’re hoping to have a herbal tea party to celebrate, so we have a lot exciting stuff coming up.”