Thanks for the nice comments about my photos, everyone. Betty, I hope that the pipevine swallowtails will find you soon. They really are neat caterpillars to raise. I think it's funny that you can actually hear them eating. I was sitting here in the kitchen one night the year I started raising them and kept hearing this sound and kept looking and listening and finally tracked it down to the Pipevine Swallowtail container. I had read before on here how they make noise when they eat but wasn't really thinking about it at the time. Susan, Yes, didn't those pipevines get big though! I had a little growth the first year, more the next year, and the third year is when it really took off and also the first year that I got Pipevine Swallowtails. This year I should be able to feed an army of them! If I could buy fencing for around our yard, that's what I'd put on it. This could be the PVS capital of PA! lol Oh, and sorry but you can't have my Pipevine Swallowtails. ;-) I agree with you about the orange cosmos. It's definitely a butterfly draw! I have 4 that came up from winter sowing. I wanted them but not a lot of plants because they really throw down the seeds. I do love the flowers though. I think I should have added that to my list of flowers that most attract the butterflies. For me it's those, coneflowers, butterfly bush, and Verbena bonariensis. Cathy

Y'all should have seen the buttonbush today - I think every butterfly enthusiast should have one to see this sight! There were about 15 tiger swallowtails, including a good many females, too-numerous-to-count pipevine swallowtails, spicebush swallowtails, American ladies, skippers, bees, etc. I saw yellow male tigers flirting with black females all over the place - the buttonbush has made a good meeting place for them, like a bar! Later on this evening, some tigers had a puddle party - Here's one of the pipevine swallowtails - There were all sizes of butterflies on it, like this little pearl crescent ........ and this giant swallowtail - I hope the giant swallowtail is a female (with eggs) but it looked like a male. 'Sorry for posting so many pictures, but I just can't stay away from the show on the buttonbush! Sherry

TomatoWorm59, I am in Parker County & in 7B zone...we are about 10 degrees cooler than the DFW area. mechelle_m is offering seeds & I have more plants that might have seeds still. I have only seen 1 male PVST lately hanging around so all my pipevines are doing well & should still produce seeds if I don't end up with hungry cats that like to eat them! Mary, I usually make sure I keep a covering of leaves over my fimbriata plants. Last winter, it was the coldest it had been in 20 years here & got down as low as 6 degrees & 10 degrees F. All of my fimbriatas came back from root that were lightly protected with leaves. What are the coldest temps in your area? A lot of sites say A.fimbriata is only hardy to zone 8 but it has done great here for me with the help from my native Cedar Elm leaves. I have oaks too but they are mostly in the front yard.

Marti, thanks for telling me how you 'try' to manage your vitex trees. As for the turtles I have about 7 or 8 grown ones and who knows how many little ones that are seeding the neighborhood. The little ones can get through the fence, but the big ones, some hatched here, can't. Someone else must have had them for years around here as a couple of them turned up on my Mom's patio, looking to be fed apparently, and she gave them to me. Other neighbors find them in the street or their yards and have given me one or two. I keep the bowls of water around the garden and they love to lounge in them on a hot day. They are more agile than you'd think and get in and out by themselves. The pipevines are easily grown from fresh seeds. Let me know if you want some. Hopefully the cats won't eat them all as they seem to be trying to do here! Just now I found ten caterpillars hanging out on the undersides of this one Sago palm. Never seen them do this before. They still have plenty to eat in this spot. Maybe they are getting ready to molt? Lesli, sure glad you gave the best bulb of the two that you got at the church swap ... LOL