Hi Girl, it's been a while, hoping all's well and we can make another trade, from your listed wants I have cockscombs but hope you like some others, just harvested white zinnia-magellan and have coneflower Red Papaya besides what's on my list, prepared to be told no too. :) best wishes, Bea

We converted one of our old sheds with a south face into a native plant conetainer nursery. We repurposed the old storm windows from the house when we put new windows in, and added 7 sliding patio door panels as skylights in the roof. I have 1200 plants started as a second year experiment. Last year we planted 350 plants with this system and am currently at about 87% success for this spring, although some of the butterfly milkweeds are still popping out of the ground. I am doing this with my expanded favorites this year. There is 12 trays of 96 conetainers in each tray. Trays are planted with Butterfly Milkweed, Round Headed Bush clover, Purple Prairie Clover, Michigan Lily, Prairie Lily, Prairie Dock, Prairie Dropseed grass, Hoary Puccoon, Prairie Turnip, Marsh Milkweed. Joe Pye, and one other that I cannot think of right now.

I added in cuttings from baptisa australis and wild lupine. It looks like some of the cats have started eating them, so that is good. The ones that were crawling around the top of the enclosure have apparently decided to pupate there. It is a mesh sleeve that I had put the potted plants in and twisted the top fabric to keep it closed. They crawled into some of the fabric creases and used their "silk" to close off the mesh creases more securely. Then they just sat there for a couple of days, which concerned me because other butterflies I have raised don't take that long. This morning I looked and their little black heads had all come off. You can't really see much of the skin, just the little head laying there. Their pupa is pretty much the same size, shape and color as the caterpillars were.... at least so far. I will have to be careful opening the enclosure, and will probably have to move them once they are hardened. I just hope my two potted milk vetch have enough reserves to regrow so I can plant them in the ground this fall. I'll try to put some pictures up later.

Brandon, I am not sure if you've had any takers yet... One of my unusual seed offerings is Manfreda virginca, one of those weird, uncommon natives.