I used to frequent this forum a lot, not so much now due to work and other things going on in my life. I admit I havent posted much in the last couple years. This winter was an awful one here in cape coral, we had 2 nights that got down to 32 and set a new record low. Appearantly that was enough to reduce our landscaping with huge butterfly gardens to nothing but bare mulch. A few of the hibiscus survived, and most of the angel trumpets are coming back from the roots, but of the hundreds of perrenials and milkweeds that attracted butterflies in droves to our yard, we ended up with 2 scarlet milkweeds and 2 gloriosa daisies. Much of my spare time this spring has gone to cutting and hauling dead limbs to the road and pulling up sleletons of dead plants. Thank god for bulk seed wholesalers. There's no way we would have been able to replace the 400 odd flowering plants that died with new ones from the nursuries at todays prices all in one spring. So now with the new seedlings coming up strong, laying some new mulch, and a few trips to local nurseries and gerden centers, the landscaping should be on it's way to a rebirth. We do miss the butterfly activity we used to have about the place all year long in past seasons, but I'm hoping as the flowers return, so will our butterflies. Usually we have hundreds of monarch caterpillars in the milkweed beds by now. I wonder how hard hit the butterflies were from the severe winter weather this year? I have seen some monarchs returning this spring, but without food and nectar they didnt hang around much, but nowhere near in the numbers of years past. The citrus trees made it through ok, and we have seen giant swallowtails laying their eggs and feeding at the blossoms as usual, but are missing our zebra longwings, painted ladies, red admirals, buckeyes, and various sulphers that have always filled the yard by this time of year. I'm hoping to see what happens in the months ahead. Hopefully hurricane season will bring us some rain to get these plants jump started. This parching 90 weather without a drop of moisture is hell to get anything regrowing in, and the constant irrigation isn't too friendly on the electric bill!

Dave