Those stories just make me sick. I've just been complaining recently about that sort of totalitarianism in my small town. The city comes by regularly and rips limbs off my trees in the back alley - they do not trim them, they rip them with some sort of huge machine on a truck. I know their goal is to kill them, and they did kill one old silver maple that I remember from my childhood when it was a baby. (I live in the same house I grew up in.) I try to flout them where I can. Much to my husband's dismay, I let my kids keep a small stand of corn in the front strip of lawn that sprouted up from last fall's Halloween decorations. I maintained it meticulously, weedeating around it, and handweeding between the stalks. That was cleaned up after harvest, but we still have the watermelon and pumpkin vines out front...Thank goodness I'm not the only rebel. My neighbor and cousin are both growing pumpkins in their front yards too this year!!! I really fear I may be cited soon for my "Green Globe" - an experiment gone awry. My daughter and I plant these beautiful foliage plants every year - well, ok, technically they're weeds...Redshanks...really cute. Anyway, we always stick a few in odd places where they don't have the best conditions. This year we had the brilliant idea of putting them in a heavily amended slightly raised bed right up in front of the porch. They usually top out at around 3 ft. in a good year. This year they are over 6 ft, and filling an entire bed. The stems are like bamboo, about 2" diameter in some places. And when it rains, it flattens the whole thing from the middle. I trimmed it back some, but it just keeps getting out of control. When it's at its best, it's really pretty and different. Even my husband admired it for quite awhile. Everyone asks me what kind of shrub that is - "Wow, that grew really fast..." I can't wait to relieve the city - and my husband - of this problem, but it is just on the verge of setting prodigious amounts of the best seed ever...

I will start with Larry's post.My home county(Coffee)did not have any annotation for butterflies.There were 42 pages(counting front and back as 2 pages)with each page showing 2 maps outlining the state of AL. All the Counties were crammed in.The drawings were very small with no room To name the counties.The big map naming the counties was back on page 448.So I better just start with my county and Swallowtails(only single map Page that starts the checklist).Anyway,I went thru every page that followed Until the end of the checklist.No annotations for my county.I have a lot of These butterflies. So,I am seeing a lot of counties blank.Should they be blank?So,I would Like to see more participation coming from the counties to give input. The ladies who wrote the book stated the Butterflies and Moths of North America Web site as a source for the range map.The site can not give Accounts unless we give them input.I was not aware of the shortfall. I want to make it better. Thanks for posting and looking at the overall percentage of blanks will Take more time.I am thinking there were too many blank counties. DD

Thank you leafhead, now you are just exhausting me! :-) I am out of room for any thing larger than Marigolds, snapdragons and yes, asters. I cannot decide which asters to get. They recommend Aster lateriflorus 'Lady in Black' and Aster novi belgii Alert (red), for my area. I did find a great plant list just for the Texas High Plains, so I think I will try their local varieties. They also sell plants, however it is a long drive, but they do have native milkweed, several varieties, I would like to try. Next year I will have time to put in more garden space, as I do away with more lawn, but for now I am full-up! I think I will learn alot this summer, and by next spring I should know more about what is good for me as far as natives, and if I see butterflies I did not expect, I will plant what I can to meet their needs. I am very excited about my first season. I don't think I have a chance of seeing either a Giant or a Tiger Swallowtail. The sulfurs we get are happy with grasses, so I have that covered. I do need Violets! The list never ends.... Thanks again, Debra

The only instance I can think of where I would side with the litigators is in a situation where there is a prepurchase agreement that lawn/landscaping follow certain guidelines. If you choose to move into a community that has rules about property upkeep then I think you are obligated to follow those bylaws. And this is strictly in regards to the yard area, not issues with the general upkeep of the house itself. There is a very large house which was built around the turn of the century in a town about 30 minutes from here. This property takes up most of a city block and it recently sold after sitting empty for several years. Well,during the last few years, every time I went by there I noticed flags and markers around certain trees and things getting shuffled around outside, and all the while I realized there was less and less lawn. At first it looked like complete chaos and that the new owners were just slobby, especially since the house itself never had work done on it that I could see. Then recently I took a closer look as I drove by and it dawned on me that they were in the process of naturalizing the place. There are now lots of shade loving plants and wildflowers and the old hedge with its artificially pruned shapes is gone and replaced with low native shrubs. It has the beginnings of a stratified forest-type setting, with layers of growth. And the funny thing is that every time I have had someone with me in the passenger seat, there is usually a comment about how the people have "let the property go to pot". Strange how trees and trumpet creeper and anything other than neat carpet from a sod farm is seen as undesirable and ugly. No, there's no sacks of garbage spilling over onto the sidewalk, no broken bottles in the grass or peeling paint on the walls, but it's still trashy?