Susan,

I buy flower seeds from many of the same places I buy veggie seeds---Baker Creek, Seed Savers Exchange, R. H. Shumway, J. W. Jung, Harris Seed, Victory Seed, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Seeds of Change, etc., and of course, Select Seed is one of my favorite sources of mostly heirloom and some newer hybrid flower seeds and plant. J. L. Hudson, which you mentioned already, is one of my favorite places to look for hard-to-find types.

A few of the smaller and less-well-know seed companies I purchase flower (and other) seeds from include:

Wildseed Farms www.wildseedfarms.com

Native American Seed Co. www.seedsource.com

Digital Rain Gardens www.digitalraingardens.com

Eden Organic Nursery Services www.Eonseed.com

I also think Evergreen Seed Co. is a great source for purple hyacinth bean vine and for the white-flowered version as well. They sell four varieties of hyacinth bean vine and carry a full selection of oriental vegetables that are hard to find elsewhere. You can find them at www.evergreenseeds.com.

Dawn

Stuff like Hyacinth Bean and Moonflower and some zinnias, I just find at the local nurseries, e.g., TLC, Horn's, even Walmart, Dollar Store, HD, Lowe's, etc. I guess that is an advantage of being in the city huh?

But it is hard to find some natives and exclusive seeds anywhere except on the Internet. What would we do nowadays?

You named some good ones, too. I think I did check out Evergreen, but thought they were kind of higher in price, but it may have been another one. I will check them out again just in case.

Seedman also has some hard to find seeds, too.

I don't think this thread is going to get much response since most of the current members are pretty much strictly veggie growers. But, the popularity of various types of gardening is cyclic in nature so it will come around again I'm sure. And I realize the economy has a lot to do with folks getting into growing and harvesting their own food as well. I just wish I had more available sun for it, but I don't so I have to make do with what I do have.

Like you, Dawn, I had a terrific scare this summer in my backyard, and as a result, I virtually had to let my backyard garden go by the wayside. A stray pit bull decided to get into my yard, and the fencing is pretty well worn and I just can't fix it right now. Seemed like every time I turned around, there was that dog crashing through the shrubs and grass, howling and barking, and you know how they paw the ground when they think they have something cornered. Lordy it did scare me! You know how my little GD's face was mauled by a pit bull when she was 2 years old and had to have plastic surgery to repair her face, and still needs some surgery yet. Those dogs lock their jaws and don't let go come heck or high water! There just isn't a nice pit bull out there because their brains are wacko. Once again, this was supposed to be the "nicest, sweetest, harmless dog".....yeah, right. You will never convince me and no one can say that those dogs should be allowed on this earth. So, yeah, I was petrified to say the least.

I called Animal Control 3 times and it may be they finally got it in early fall because it finally began to quiet down back there. My neighbors were helping to keep an eye out for it, too, and they hadn't seen it after September or so.

I sure hope I can get out there this year because I missed my little corner of heaven out there. Still, it is very shady so no hope for ever growing vegetables there either.

I guess I did go on about it, but fear makes be babble rather than become tongue-tied, LOL!

Here's to shopping online!

Susan

Susan,

We still have quite a few flower growers around but most of them don't start posting much until spring planting time nears. Lisa still does a lot of flowers and a lot of our veggie growers also grow a lot of flowers. By the way, I had a chance to tour Lisa's yard last year after the plant swap and her entire yard was spectacular.

I suspect a lot of our flower growers are like me.....most of my flowers are perennials or reseeding annuals so I don't add many new plants any more because all my beds are essentially full. I'd love to add more flowers but that would require building more beds. I'm pretty sure I'll add at least one mixed cottage border of flowers to the two new vegetable growing gardens we'll be putting in before spring because I count on the flowers near veggies to attract pollinators and other beneficial insects. I wouldn't even attempt to grow veggies without flowers nearby for just that reason. I won't have to order seeds for those new cottage border beds though because I ordered tons of flower seeds last year and didn't use them because once the 12.84" of rain fell on April 29th, my soil was too wet for 6 weeks and by then it was midsummer.

I probably will order the two new varieties of 4 o'clocks available from Select Seeds but that's about it.

I didn't know about your pit bull problems. My problem was cougars and they especially liked to hang out near the garden. No one around me has reported hearing or seeing one since October so I am hoping they've moved on. (However, another small dog disappeared recently close to where the other 2 dogs disappeared earlier this year, so that is a little worrisome.) I have had a coyote in the yard recently, and a bobcat, and I am not happy about that, but I suspect they were coming here in the snow looking for food because I only saw their tracks once just a couple of days after it snowed. I haven't seen them since, and it is so muddy here that if they'd returned, I think I'd see tracks in the mud.

Pit bulls are so often a problem. I won't even walk my dogs on a road that has pit bulls which are allowed to roam. Out here in the rural areas there are no leash laws. Every single year in Marietta there are reported cases of pit bulls attacking (and often killing) other dogs and occasionally a person is attacked and bitten. The Marietta police are very aggressive about enforcing the dog leash laws in Marietta, yet you hear pit bull complaints several days a week. I think if someone is going to have a pit bull, they need to be responsible and keep it in a well-fenced yard or chained up.

I didn't realize Miss M. faces more surgery, bless her little heart.

I hope we both have better access to our own gardens in 2010!

Dawn

Susan,
I hate to hear about your problems with the pit bulls. They are having problems in every town around here. They bacame a symbol for the wanna be gangsters. My coworkers wife couldn't leave her house to go to work because of one. And the animal control people here are afraid of them. And when they take one to the pound they usually end up back out on the streets. I live on the outskirts of town and this area was only took into the city limits ten years or less ago so livestock is allowed. I've never been bothered. A few south of me closer to town have. And they take care of the problem before they get here. I know a couple has been shot. Seems laws don't slow down the owning or the breeding of them. My thoughts and prayers will be with yuur GD and her surgeries. Jay

Susan - my sympathies and prayers to your GD. Poor baby! Sadly, that incidence will leave scares we can't see. After what you've been thru, I wouldn't blame you if you'd found a way to shoot the one intruding in your yard. I hated it when I lived in the city and people would just let their dogs roam the neighborhood or not take steps to keep them in their yards. That's what fences are for! Now that I live rural...I still don't like my neighbors dogs in my yard. Last year, the people with a plot behind and then east of us had about 6 dogs of varying size. Every morning, they came over to our place to do their "business" right between our pines and our pool, which is a walkway we use to the In-laws and back. Made me so STINKIN' mad! DH got out the pellet gun and peppered their behinds several days in a row and suddenly...they quit coming over!

Now...how could I have missed planting flowers around the garden to attract pollinators? DUH! Tell me more?!?! What kinds? Are there ones that should be considered companions? Please don't tell me marigolds. We have allergies to those and we kinda need to be able to breathe! LOL

Paula

I have a book called "Carrots Love Tomatoes" by Louise Riotte. It is a great companion planting resourse. She also wrote "Roses Love Garlic" but I don't have that one yet. That may be the book you need because in mine she mostly talks about marigolds and wild plants that help veggies.

I am kind of a haphazard gardener, to be honest. I just plant what appeals to the butterflies, bees, moths, and other beneficials. Of course, along with all of those we do get the ones that are not so beneficial as well. Mother Nature has a way of balancing things out, though.

In planting things that attracted all of these "pets", I attracted many others that I didn't plan on, but were welcome anyway, like the beautiful sphinx moths, and the hummingbirds. I never had put a hummer feeder out until the hummers began to show up to nectar on many of the same flowers and shrubs that attract the butterflies, like the passion flowers, Verbena bonariensis, Pentas, Lantana, Cypress Vine, Mexican Sunflowers, and many that are considered tropical here and only grow one season in pots.

A couple of years ago I began to get interested in growing natives, because they attract a lot of birds, butterflies, bees, and other beneficials, and many are host plants for butterflies (they lay eggs on specific plants). Monarchs will only use milkweeds, Black Swallowtails only use parsley, fennel, Rue, and other apiaceae family members. Our native passion vine is host to the Gulf Fritillary, as well as a few other passion vines. Aristolochias (pipevines) that are natives are utilized by the Pipevine Swallowtail. Three of these are native to Oklahoma. Native asters host Pearl Crescents. Native sennas host Cloudless Sulphurs and Sleepy Oranges. Native False Nettle hosts the Red Admirals and Question Marks (so does stinging nettle, but False Nettle does not have the stinging hairs). Wild Indigo (Baptisias) host the Wild Indigo Duskywing. Plantago hosts Buckeyes. Verbesina encelioides (Golden Crownbeard) hosts Bordered Patches. Coneflowers (Echinaceas) host Silvery Checkerspots. Goatweed (Crotons - native not the decorative houseplant) host the Goatweed Leafwings; Tulip Trees host Tiger Swallowtails along with a host of other trees, including Wild Black Cherry. Sassafras and Spicebush host the Spicebush Swallowtail. Wild violets and Passiflora incarnata (natives) host the Variegated Fritillary (not a true frit, but rather a longwing). Daturas (the native and others) host the Tobacco and Tomato hornworms. Virginia Creeper host many, many moths like the beautiful 8-spotted forester and lots of sphinx. Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) hosts the beautiful silk moth, Cecropia. Native honeysuckle and viburnum host the Snowberry Clearwing sphinx moth (resembles a large bumblebee). Hackberry and Elm trees host Question Marks and Hackberry hosts the Hackberry and Tawny Emperors. Willow hosts Red Spotted Purples and Mourning Cloaks.

So you can see the list is endless almost. I get lots of ladybugs, green lacewings, and praying mantids. This is all good, but they do eat their share of butterfly/moth eggs and caterpillars. Such is life in the garden, tho.

I find lots of insect activity on all the plants I mentioned. Most natives are loaded with nectar because it hasn't been bred out of the plant in the breeding process. For instance, you might find some activity on the old species roses, but you don't on cultivars. They just don't produce nectar. So the more hybrids that have been made up the line, the less nectar the flowers produce.

Natives are wonderful. They have proven they can survive almost any adverse condition or event. Some are quite beautiful, too, but their purpose is often a bit more esoteric than appealing to the eye. Also, butterflies generally like flat top or single flowers because they provide a better landing pad for them. All of those new doubles cultivars make it almost impossible to obtain nectar so I try to stick to these.

Kenna has survived the scars of being traumatized by the pit bull exceptionally well. She still loves dogs, cats, and, of course, butterflies, and hasn't displayed any inordinative fear of them. It probably helped that both her grandfather and I both love animals and have them at home. In fact, her GF has 3 Rottweilers that are watch dogs. They have grown up with her, though, and she doesn't hesitate to interact with them at all. I, on the other hand, am a bit more cautious cuz I am not around them much.

Susan

Susan, I am a gardener who loves and does both, gardens for eating and ornamentals.

A lot of mine are perennials that I bought from Bluestone Perennials way back when you could get three for around $9. A lot of them are now $16 for three. I am amazed at the prices of plants these days.

The rest are a lot of self-seeding annuals or tender perennials which self-seed here in my Zone 6. Verbena bonariensis is one and some of the southern salvias. Once in a great while zinnia and marigolds self seed too, but I plant them each year, plus cosmos, melampodiums, and my first love vincas, catharanthus roseus. I have had them self-seed too.

I save seeds when I can from them and then don't buy the next year.

Re: Pit bulls. We just had an incident in town where a "pet" pit bull escaped and killed two or three neighborhood dogs and stalked a small child through the patio doors. They scare the bejabbers out of me. One used to come into our yard while I was gardening. I would look down and there he was! DH said just ignore him and don't look at him. I did and he would wander back to the farm behind us where he lived. I haven't seen him in a few years now. Good!

Susan,

I guess I have had Kenna in my brain as McKenna or MaKenna all these years. I need to relearn her name properly. If my memory gets any worse, I won't even remember my own name.

I've never thought of you as a haphazard gardener but as an adventurous one. Since you live in a civilized area, you have to work so hard to restore native plantings to your area and I can only imagine how difficult that can be. I have the opposite problem....natives everywhere and me struggling to convert part of our property to a more civilized type landscape. I do keep most natives though, but just not in my veggie beds. I do avoid many hybrid flowers for just the reason you mentioned--the nectar (and often the fragrance as well) has been bred out of them and so they aren't beneficial for wildlife.

I did spend the first couple of years we owned this property with a native plant guide book or two in my hand all the time trying to figure out what kinds of trees, shrubs, grasses, vines and forbs we had here so we wouldn't take out native plants the wild things need for food or shelter. By the time I had finished figuring out the purpose/usage of each plant by the birds, animals and insects, there wasn't much we could remove. For example, except along pathways we travel and along the edge of my veggie garden, we did not remove the poison ivy, greenbrier and Virginia creeper and instead left them in place for the wild things.

Tigerdawn, Louise Riotte is one of my favorite garden authors and it doesn't hurt that she lived in Ardmore, which is about 30 miles north of where I live. I recommend her books regularly here and have read almost all of them, including "Sleeping With A Sunflower" which I just re-read for the umpteenth time the fall.

Paula, I do lots of companion planting to attract beneficial insects and pollinators. There have been many threads on this topic in previous years and I'll try to find one and link it. If I don't find one, I'll start a new one. In general, as with butterflies, many of the pollinators and beneficials are attracted to plants with flowerheads composed of tiny flowers like yarrow, verbena bonariensis (tall verbena) or sweet alyssum and to plants with daisy-type flowers like zinnias, Mexican sunflowers (tithonia), chamomile, etc.

One thing you won't see much of in my garden (except in earliest spring before plants reach their mature height) is soil. Rather than leaving bare spots, I mulch and where at all possible I plant herbs and flowers as a living mulch to attract beneficial insects and pollinators. My garden might look haphazard or messy to someone who is used to veggie gardens having straight lines of green plants separated by rows of bare ground, but all those 'haphazard' plants serve a very useful purpose. About the only companion plant that hasn't worked out for me is tansy. Although the insects love its big flat flowerheads, the plant itself is a monster and gobbles up tons of space. I've moved it outside the garden and closer to the chicken pen because it just gets too large.

One way I know that having the extra plants to attract insects works is that I never have a shortage of bees or any pollination issues, even when Fred has pollination problems in his garden just a mile or two from our garden.

Glenda, I remember the good old days (and they were not all that long ago) when Bluestone had plants 3 for $9.00. Haven't times changed?

Y'all, there are far too many pit bulls roaming loose in our county and it is frightening how many of them attack people and other animals. If anyone in our rural area lets a pit bull roam too much, one of the ranchers will shoot it pretty quickly if they catch it trying to prey on their farm animals or domestic pets, and I can't say that I blame them.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Thread on Benerficial Insects/Companion Plants

I am going to read that thread but first wanted to say how great you guys are for being so understanding and empathetic for Kenna (Dawn, her birth name is McKenna, but we call her Kenna for short a lot; it's actually McKenna Briann Rose and surname). I (we) generally don't notice the scars as they have faded considerably over the years. But whenever she is out in the sunlight it becomes more apparent to me and I know that as a teenager, she is going to probably feel self-conscious about them (you know how teenage girls are), and she is going to want to have to have some kind of micro dermabrasion surgery. But for now, she is a happy little girl and doesn't seem concerned about it at all.

I just got thru ordering a few seeds from Smart Seeds on Ebay as they come recommended to me on the Salvia Forum. While I did order Salvia coccinia 'Forest Fire' seeds, I also found another hyacinth bean that is yellow flowering. I had not seen that and thought I would try it. They also had the Red Flowering Hyacinth Bean, but those seeds were a bit more costly and I like the yellow as well. I was also fortunate to find what I have been searching for, Caesalpina gillesii, a yellow flowering bird of paradise shrub, that is supposed to be hardy to zone 7. Steve Owen offers it thru Bustani Plant Farm, but I am going to try my hand at growing it from seed. Also got some Mexican Flame Vine, Giant Milkweed Tree (Calatropis gigantea) for the Monarchs. I am hoping I can grow these and harvest seed next fall. Anyway, they have a good variety of unusual seeds, so check them out if you get a chance.

Glenda, what Salvias do you have that reseed, other than Yvonne's (does it self-sow)? I have been on the Salvia Forum trying to select some Salvias that are hardy and/or that reseed. So far, I have decided on Salvia regla, maybe Salvia miniata, and a red Salvia greggii. I grow Salvia coccinia 'Coral Nymph' which reseeds year to year and the Sulphur butterflies just love it. Also have Salvia guaranitica 'Black & Blue', but some kind of generalist (probably a noctuid) moth caterpillar eats the blooms and tips to pieces every year, so I may have to take it out. I love caterpillars but not these!

I, too, remember when Bluestone offered the 3 for $9 plants in the not so distant past. I never did order from them, though. I heard their plants, altho small, are very nice. I have mainly ordered native plants via mail order because they are hard to find locally. Some are starting to infiltrate the market here in OKC in the last couple of years as native gardening gains popularity. But many of the ones I grow are rare in the commercial trade in OKC, so I have to order them.

I have brought a little "country" to the city with my gardening, I guess. It seems so funny when I look at my yard in the height of summer, seeing all the butterflies, dragonflies, hummers, bees, bumbles, moths, and other flying critters, and I look around at the neighbors with their vacant lawns and realize I am teeming with activity, while theirs is empty of any life. I feel very lucky in that respect, and people are always asking about what kind of bug or butterfly they are seeing! LOL! You know I am happy to oblige, right?

Gosh, I never have a shortage of bees and bumbles either, Dawn! In fact, this year, the honeybees were obsessed with the Datura flowers. They would come early in the morning, dozens to each flower! I have never seen them enjoying the Datura so much as this last summer.

Of course, one of the secrets to a wildlife garden is abstinence from the use of any kind of chemicals! An absolute no-no. I don't even use any of the insecticidal soaps that are supposed to be less noxious. A hard spray of water from the hose, or hand picking is the only solution for me. I have orange fingers from squishing Milkweed aphids (Oleander aphids) during the summer, and milkweed bugs and beetles! They won't really kill the milkweed, but it does look a bit unsightly.

Guess I've about exhausted this post, so I will sign off!

Thanks everybody!

Susan

Susan,

Well, it is a relief to know I didn't make up the McKenna that was in my head. I LOVE her entire name--it is just a beautiful name!

I am sure the scars probaby will make her self-conscious as a teenager, but what teenager isn't self-conscious about something?

Now I'll have to go look at Smart Seeds and see what they have that I cannot live without. It sounds like you found some interesting seeds there.

Your yard in the summer is the way a yard ought to be!!!! Yards need to have life in them and not just be these sterile green carpets of perfectly manicured grass.

I wonder what the bees' special attraction to the daturas was? We always have lots of bees here and I don't mind them, although I'm more careful around wasps and hornets. Some of my friends get really nervous about bees and wasps in the garden no matter how often I explain that they are beneficial and rarely sting a human being. During the winter, I worry about the bees, so sometimes I put out sugar water in a hummingbird feeder for them. Other times, I noticed the bees feeding on the cracked corn in the hen scratch. I'm not sure how they feed on it, but often there's oodles of them around it, so I think they're feeding on it somehow. January seems to be the hardest month for the bees because by February we usually have the earliest wildflowers blooming.

I have noticed that our darling daughter-in-law, whom we adore in every way, is nervous around spiders. There again I can say they are beneficial until I'm blue in the face and it doesn't matter--she still wants them all to be dead and gone.

I avoid chemicals too and don't like to use even the standard organic products like neem, insecticial soap, etc. For me, the hardest thing in the world is to remain patient when the aphids show up. I have an immediate urge to spray them with neem or insecticidal soap, but I normally don't do it. I know if I am patient, the ladybugs will show up amd they always do and then it is bye bye to the aphids.

This has been a fun thread!

Dawn

Yes, it certainly has been fun!

I remember using Neem on something years ago, and whatever it was, immediately died! I quit using it after that. I used to use the insecticidal soap, Safer's, years ago, but quit using it, too.

I used to be petrified of bees and wasps. I am very respectful around wasps still cuz I don't really know which ones are more aggressive than the others. I had a lot of yellow jackets one year on my aster blooms, but they were so interested in nectaring that they just ignored me. Others are more questionable because they hover and fly in and around the fennel and other plants searching for caterpillars. I have seen them actually carry off cats from my plants. Last year I actually got to see a Cicada killer bee (not agressive but boy are they HUGE) actually kill a locust. I heard this loud buzzing that sounded like a mini helicopter; turned around to see the wasp lowering itself to the ground with a Cicada bigger than it was, in its jaws! Amazing!

I don't know what was particularly attracting to my Datura to the bees - maybe it just happened to be a very good nectar summer for it as opposed to other years? I will be watching this summer (if the Datura survives) to see if the bees visit the flowers again.

I don't know if you grow the tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, Dawn, or not, but it is a huge attractant for the bees and butterflies. I mean, it not only hosts the Monarchs, but all butterflies just love it since it is heavily loaded with nectar. It would probably reseed for you in your neck of the woods, too. I just direct sow it after frost danger is passed, and it comes up when the soil gets warm and grows really fast. You don't need to deadhead it either - it just keeps on blooming.

Susan

Susan,

I do have a few of the tropical milkweed, but I have exactly the same number of plants I started out with, so they don't appear to be reseeding and do appear to be overwintering just fine in some very yucky barely-improved clay...or, they are not overwintering but are reseeding, but still I have exactly the same number of plants that I started out with.

Sometimes when I break new ground, I get another milkweed. You told me what its name was once, several years ago....it is the one that has large leaves and pinkish-white flowers. I think it is showy milkweed. It seems more short-lived than A. curassavica though, and rarely comes back for more than just a couple of years.

Of course, I have mixed feelings about the wasps. If you've ever been stung by a wasp or hornet, that memory alone will make you less happy about seeing them flying around the yard and garden. Out her in the country, we have tons of cicadas, so also tons of cicada killers. I know that wasps are very helpful in a veggie garden because some of them parasitize harmful cats, but I don't like that they also harm the cats I like having around.

Last year was a really, really great butterfly and moth year here, even though the monarch migration went west of us and I didn't get so see it.

The only Luna moth I saw last year was on the window screen outside the window where I had my seed-starting shelves with their 10 shop light fixtures (so, 20 bulbs!). The luna would hang out there as long as I left the light on. In previous years, I've seen more than one, but still was happy to see the one because one is better than none. I do have to admit that when the seed-starting light is on late at night (I usually turn it off whenever I go upstairs to go to bed), that window just glows with light and the moths all come and hang around until the light goes off.

Dawn

You are so lucky to see the Luna and I've forgotten what host plants they use cuz I have YET to see ANY of the Saturniid moths like the Luna, Cecropia, Io (stinging hairs on caterpillar, watch out!). Sandy from Tulsa, who pops in here every now and then raised some Cecropias this summer on Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), which I am sure you see in your area. The caterpillars are gorgeous, too. They eat an enormous amount of food while growing. and eat nothing as adults. Anyway, they always ovewrwinter as cocoons, too, so she'll be waiting this spring anxiously to see them emerge. A lot of silk moths do this, just one brood per year that eats that year and overwinters as a cocoon, to emerge the following spring (univoltine). If you wander around outdoors in the winter, you might find some cocoons on the bare tree branches, where they are easy to see once the leaves have all fallen.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cecropia Moth Life Cycle

I adore the Lunas and see them about every other year. One year, we had 2 pairs of them....one pair here and one pair at the fire station. They're only around for a few days and I usually see them pretty much daily during that time. I think I usually see them in April, but can't swear to it because that's my crazy planting season and some days I don't even know what month or year it is.

I don't believe I've ever seen a Crecopia here, and I'm not likely to wander around and check the tree branches....with over ten acres of overgrown woodland, you can't see the forest (or the cocoons) for the trees. LOL I wish we had time to thin out some of the overgrown woods and underbrush. We used to work on cleaning up the woods a lot in the wintertime, but that pretty much stopped when Tim joined the volunteer Fire Department in 2005 because it takes up all his extra time and then some. If I ever happen to see a cocoon or moth, of course, I'd tell you all about it.

All I'm seeing lately is rabbits and deer and a gazillion birds. Judging from the heavy wildlife traffic in our yard last night and today, I'd say the wild things definitely know a big chill is coming.