my seed grown ones ... [never heard them being sold as tubers????] ... have NOT bloomed yet ... and are just a bit larger than yours sound ... i appreciate you searched for an old post .. but after that.. i suggest you start your own post .. so you can check the box.. so that replies will be sent to your email ... let them go to seed late this summer [or save some in an envelope] .. and press a piece of the plant plant.. so you will recognize them next spring.. when they pop up .. once the soil warms enough ... if they are alive.. you win ... just check your patience ... they will come ... ken

If you like having butterflies visit your yard, few things are more attractive to them than Lantana. If your Mom wouldn't mind, take some cuttings from her plants and literally just stick them in the ground. Water every few days if it doesn't rain. I just added pics including a Lantana cutting from last year that's growing back nicely this spring, in this discussion. Butterfly bushes (Buddleia) are just as easy to multiply, but somebody has to have one to get started. Easy to find in stores, inexpensive, or through trading. Of course BF's like butterfly bushes, HA! Basil flowers are beloved by BF's and bees. If you have a little patch of ground to scatter some basil seeds, they should have plenty of time to make flowers this year. Then, of course, the leaves are yummy. The flowers are white, so don't clash with anything, not that exciting visually, but I've seen hummingbirds visiting them also. That gets it a prized spot in my opinion. That's really cool your sprouts survived some frosts! Has anyone else noticed, the seed sprouts are all plain green, top and bottom. The plants coming back from previous years' tubers have red on the back of their leaves. I was very intrigued by the first one I saw in the back yard because I didn't recognize it at first, but could tell it was growth, not a sprout, and there were no weeds there to be growing back. Never know what could creep over from the abandoned yard next door though.

zookeeper, maybe you've got the beetles confused with the Asian ladybugs? I don't think they eat other bugs but plant material, could be wrong. I've read this from several different sources otherwise wouldn't use wiki. "The insect was first found in the United States in 1916 in a nursery near Riverton, New Jersey. It is thought that beetle larvae entered the United States in a shipment of iris bulbs prior to 1912 when inspections of commodities entering the country began." Goes on talking about how first spotted in Nova Scotia in 1939. From New Jersey, they have slowly and relentlessly fanned out, working their way north, south and westward. But they're not much of a problem in FL or the Gulf states and much west of Iowa. The Rockies and deserts provide a natural barrier of sorts, but it appears they've gotten into the Pacific NW and working their way down to CA. Here's Purdue's alltime distribution map, don't like wiki's map because it just shows eastern US. Known natural predators include the Praying Mantis, but it would take a ton of them. Also (I read a lot of this on the OGR forum) people report their ducks, wild turkeys, starlings eat them. The turkeys poop them out dead but undigested, saw a very yucky photo of that someone posted from the east coast who was having a horrid time that year. I used to see brown birds, possibly an unfamiliar (to me) woodpecker) feeding in lots of lawns around here and under my birch trees, wondered what they were eating. I now think they were eating the grubs, but I haven't seen those lately, had been feeding them. They are carnivores. People didn't like them and put up fake owls to scare them away . . . But I'm with you 100% about importing things without considering negative consequences, some of which aren't known until it's too late. That's why I'm cautious about the U of MI experiment and the tachinid fly, much as I'm hoping for relief. I'm thinking when they really hit the grape, almond and fruit crops in CA, there will be more agitation to find the best eradicator. They will spray, and that means more stuff to worry about on and in our food. Sevin on the instructions tells exactly when to quit spraying on food crops, like I'm supposed to go by that? I only spray my cherry trees after they have fruited which may have been earlier than usual last year before they showed up Jun 21 in my yard. It was about a week later the year before. Sorry the map makes you scroll to the right but one of the best ones I know. Here is a link that might be useful: Japanese Beetle - Wikipedia

Wow! I never thought this would get resurrected! Mine arent doing too well, Jali! As a matter of fact, theyÂre not doing at all! That very first one I planted, unknown to me at the time I planted it, wound up being in a place where water temporarily pooled from the gutters whenever it rainedÂwhich isnÂt all that much, but it doesnÂt take too much water to be too much for these things. And it was also planted in the middle of a vast expanse of rock mulch, so there was only a VERY small areaÂin extremely bad clay right thereÂthat was improved at all! The next year I bought another one, thinking IÂd be able to get rid of some of the rock and try again, but that spring, after working so sick for over a month that I could hardly stand up, I discovered I had severe anemia (at least partly because I had been giving blood every 2 months while I was off for 11 months with the broken kneecap), and I was so (unbelievably) weak I couldnÂt even sit up in front of the computer for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time, so none of the rock got moved, and NOTHING got plantedÂand that one died (in the pot) too! ThatÂs also when my HP bit the dustÂmaybe it caught the anemia! I had my new Dell sitting here in the box right where the UPS guy put it for over a month. ThatÂs how sick I was! Brand new computer sitting in a box for a month! How often does THAT happen! But then, when the HP started talking to me in binary, I didnÂt have any choice anymore and had to get out the Dell. I remember the day I installed it! Oh, my! I eventually managed to get everything plugged into the right place, but when I tried to shove the CPU and all the other "spare parts" under the table where I work, I discovered the cords were all wrapped around the table legs! And they stayed that way for another month! When I turned it on it workedÂand it talked to me in English. What more could you want! (At that same time, when I was too sick to even drive anywhere except the doctorÂs office--and shouldn't have been doing that, the State of Colorado suddenly decided to void my driverÂs license! But thatÂs another whole long story! It had nothing to do with me or my driving record! I was just having a really, really good year!) Then, last spring I bought ANOTHER one! The people from FreeCycle who had taken the rock out of most of the back yard said they were coming back to get more out of the front yardÂand all summer they kept giving me excuses for why they couldnÂt come! By summer my elbow (having had 3 cortisone shots) was deteriorating so badly again that I was having trouble working and didnÂt want to do anything that might possibly aggravate it furtherÂlike moving rock!Âso the rock just stayed there againÂand the Four OÂClock didnÂt get planted againÂand I just went out to check it in the pot and another one has bitten the dust! TheyÂre taprooted and donÂt do well in pots over winter, or even for too long in summer for that matter, but I was hoping! And, since they are taprooted, you canÂt just stick them in somewhere temporarily and transplant them later, which is why I never tried that. So thatÂs the epic adventures of my many attempts to grow Mirabilis multiflora! HowÂs that for a long tale of woe! I donÂt have any live plants at all around here right now, and donÂt plan to buy anymore until the rock is GONE! And IÂm starting to think that could be 50 years from now! (Have I EVER mentioned ;-) that I HATE rock!) I do have seeds that I got from Cheryl (PaulinoÂs), and I donÂt know how long they stay viable, but when the rock does eventually "disappear," IÂm going to try the seeds before I buy another plant. At least with seeds I can start them right where I want them, so the taproot is a non-issue. The more I run out of room to plant things, though, the more I kind of wonder if I really want to put one in since they cover so much spaceÂwhich was my original intent when I moved in here and had virtually no perennials or anything pretty to look at. But after everything thatÂs happened so far in my attempts to grow one, I am absolutely determined that I eventually WILL have oneÂeven if it covers up the entire yard! IÂm planning it now to grow a little more to the side of where I originally planned it so itÂll grow around the bottom of a couple shrubs, so IÂll have the "pretty" but still have room to plant other things. Then IÂll try to plan the "other things" so it can grow around the bottom of them too, and if I need to, IÂll just cut off some of the stems that are growing the "wrong" direction. But I WILL have oneÂsome day! In the meantime, you can post some pictures of yours when they start blooming for me to salivate over! I had such high hopes when I started this thread! Still do! Skybird