"About passionvine...do you know if it spreads so easily like that up north?" Most varieties of passionvine do go crazy, but the cats make quick work of it once the gulf frits find it! Last year, I had dozens of cats at any one time, and most of the summer, they'd eaten every tiny speck green from the vine (they'd sort of crawl around pathetically looking for food... I gave a couple hundred cats over a period of a few months to a friend who grows a ton of passionvine so she could feed them). My vine has recovered and is growing wonderfully right now, nice and lush, but I've seen frits in my yard already, so it's just a matter of time before they devour it again. So, in short, if you're growing passionvine for butterfly gardening, you can never have enough, and I consider it a plus that it grows so well. The first butterflies I ever raised (I'm in Houston, too) were swallowtails--I went to harvest some parsley one day, and discovered cats on it (that's how I got into butterfly gardening, actually--it was a happy accident). Now I grow a bunch of fennel for them, which they prefer over the parsley (they won't touch the parsley until the fennel is gone), and the fennel grows really well in our area and is very easy to find at all the garden centers, so try that, too. I'm also growing frog fruit and blue pea vines this year, and both of those host plants are growing very nicely right now, but no cats yet on either. And, of course, milkweed, but no matter how much I have it's never enough. Good luck!

If you can find some Asclepias curassavica (an annual for me and you), it is the favored milkweed host for the Monarchs. Sometimes you can find seed, and now would be a good time to start them. I'm not sure how the Monarchs do with the milkweed cultivars like you mentioned. Anyone else know? Native milkweeds are good, and probably work the best. These include the species A. syriaca (common milkweed), A. incarnata (swamp milkweed), A. viridiflora (green milkweed; probably starts growing earlier than most); A. purpurescens (purple milkweed), and A. verticillata (whorled milkweed, but has very fine, feathery foliage, not very substantial for feeding purposes). You can get seeds from a lot of native plant seed sources, like Prairie Moon, but it sometimes is difficult to find the plants, unless you know someone who has some to share. They are difficult to "dig up" (tap rooted) and you probably should not remove any from their native habitat anyway, at least not without permission. I winter sowed a bunch of seed I purchased from various seed sources this last winter. Aristolochia macrophylla is another good pipevine that is a native in most zone 6 areas. Are you in New England, Missouri, elsewhere? You can do a search to find out what is native to your region. Hope this helps! Welcome to the forum! Susan

Rod, Thanks for your response!!! I'll drop an envelope in the mail this weekend! ;o) I apologize for my ignorance. LOL! I had a feeling it was an abbreviation that was very simple!!! Do you have a website for your plants...if so, please share it. I read on Dave's Garden site very positive responses about plants that were ordered from you. Is it best to winter sow to get cold stratification for the seeds or would it be better to wait until the spring to plant the seeds you send? We are still having warm daytime temps(in the 80's) here in North Texas. Thanks again for the offer & I look forward to getting the seeds.

of all the years i have been hanging around this forum... i have rarely seen seed ID ... once in a blue moon .... but never... varietal ID based on seed ... i wish you luck come back with pix of the flower... in fact.. they dont look much like anything at the link .... so i wonder how you came to understand.. that an unmarked pack of seeds were actually what the seller said???? BTW .... have you tried any of the tropical forums.. the more rare plant forums???? ii wish you luck ken Here is a link that might be useful: link