Vera, here are my sprouts. they are from seeds fallen from last year. the bunch that is by my foundation - they came up about a month ago, and withstood the really cold weather we had for 10 days in early March. the lil one on the right -- that is about 2 days old. the other already has it's second set of leaves. where it was mentioned "they need light" all of these are on the south side of my house... so I guess they do get "light" (originally when i read that, i was thinking "glow lights") and it's possible mine come up early is they are more protected by the foundation, warmer and get a lot of sun - which warms the soil earlier. if anyone needs/wants seeds... i still have tons (that's my plant posted above) ... and if anyone is in the chicago area... you can come over and dig up seedlings... my neighbor has tons too, which she also pulls out the excess.

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

That's OK, I've probably done the same thing a lot lately. The date info is in miniscule writing, and there's no "first unread" or similar feature. Since the forums don't change color to visited anymore, (and seems like they will never have an indication of whether or not there's something new,) I made bookmarks on the ones I visit daily & just gave up on the others. Clicking the bookmarked ones just to see if there's something new is where I've draw the line. It's frustrating when such simple tools aren't available. Since you're also in Z5, if you have a spot against the south or west side of your house, you could get a perennial patch going. I didn't even know about piling up leaves over marginally hardy stuff back then. If 4'o's get into a shadow late-afternoon, the flowers will open sooner, as long as there's plenty of sun for the earlier part of the day. The opposite but same strategy of putting morning glories where they will be in shadow in the morning, so the flowers stay open longer. The longer I garden, the more fun I think part-day bloomers are fun, and good for me. Reason to go out a few times a day & look around, see the diff performances.

I can't message you because you don't have messaging turned on, but if you message me we can work out a trade. Just click on my name and there is a message button on the top. I have some fresh seeds now. I'd love to have a few of both of the ones you have. If the button isn't there, you can email me at simplydeb2 at g m a i l dot com.