Patrick: glad to see you up and posting. I sent emails before trying to set up trade for double petaled bloodroot,lARGE flowering bellwort, trillium grandiflorum, and i too would be interested in lady slippers if you should ever get some to trade. see my trade list. also have a few other thing i can possibly add to the trade. please c-mail me so we can arrange a trade.

I have some beautiful ostrich ferns I would like to trade for lady's slipper, or other items on my Trade List.

Yes you can grow C. pubescens in the garden, but no, I would not try it from seed. Mature, blooming size plants run about $40-$60, and are available mail order from a number of different sources (although many are likely sold out already for the year). Google around. Wild Orchid Co and Vermont Ladyslipper are two sources. If you live in the NE and have a large, respectable nursery nearby, there is a fair chance they will carry it in the wildflowers, natives, or very expensive (!) sections. C. pubescens is not the most difficult of cyps, but still requires some extra effort: well-drained soil (mostly sand and leaf mulch) with some direct sun in the morning or late afternoon, but not midday heat. Think high open shade under large trees. Plant shallow and mulch in the fall. Very light fertilizer if any, and neither let it dry out nor sit in soggy ground. Hope all this doesn't turn you off. They're wonderful plants.

Hope you decimated the slugs! If they ate the entire shoot then I am skeptical. It may be possible that another bud may develop and grow but ??? Just wait and see what happens. I presume this is in the ground? If it is in a pot you can depot it and check out the plant by shaking off the soil. However doing this may be too much of a shock if the plant had already been in active growth. I have a C. kentuckiense and a C. reginae that were just pushing up on the surface and I depotted and repotted them up into fresh and better mix and a larger pot. This is probably the best time to do so. Too late you will retard the growth of the plant.