OMG, MissSherry - you're doing a meadow? That's fantastic! Do let us follow your project so we can see how it develops. I think that is an admirable adventure. Had to go feed my HEs and TEs (yes, Jeff! LOL!) this morning and I have lots of chrysalises now! I put my browning banana in a plastic bag yesterday and set it outside to hasten the "ripening" process so I will have some fruit for them when they emerge. It's rainy this morning so I will wash pots to get them ready for transplanting milkweeds and my new plants til I can get them in the ground. I am thrilled my Giant Milkweed is up from seed as well as my Caelsapinia gillesii (bird of paradise). If the rain stops by noon, as expected, I will get out and pull up more bermuda grass.......argh.....the laundry can wait; my clothes get dirty anyway LOL! I have one of those gorgeous Golden Delicious Salvia elegans that needs repotting already. I just potted it up 3 weeks ago and it has already outgrown its pot. I bought it at a local nursery in a 3" pot; potted up to a 6" deep pot, and shazamm! The foliage is just gorgeous. Those hot red blooms will look magnificent with that gold foliage come fall. I should have some happy hummers and Cloudless Sulphurs this year. Gonna have to look up your plants to see what they look like, MissSherry. Didn't realize there was a Delph that could be grown in the south. I have grown some Helianthus laciniatums from seed this year (seed was 6 yo and still germinated without storing it properly). They appear to be very vigorous, like the plant itself will eventually be. Also a good meadow plant. Susan

Sus, Oh but I've always thought that you had a lot of enthusiasm, so I don't think I have you beat there. You're nice to say that though. ;) I know what you mean about biting off more than you can chew. I do that a lot. Well, most of the time actually. I have projects galore that are sitting around waiting to get done. That's great that you're getting into birding too. I've been into that for probably close to 25 years and really enjoy watching the birds out at the feeders. I have bluebird boxes up for the bluebirds and have gourds on shepherd's hooks for the tree swallows. I also get wrens nesting here and other kinds of birds and lots at the feeders. I love birds and of course also butterflies. I'll have to email you sometime about birding. You mentioned sparrows, and I have some things to say about them and some other things. Maybe none of it would be new to you but I'll at least mention some things then. Isn't that odd how you have PVS one year and none the next two! Actually, that has fascinated me about different kinds of butterflies; I'll see them here and then not again for awhile. Well, I hope that you get PVS in 2010! Oh yes, I agree with your about those being like hyperactive kids. If you take the lid off the container, you'd better keep your eye on it because those critters move fast. I had one crawling on the table one day when I just walked away from the container for a short time thinking the cats would stay put. I might be imagining things, but they almost seem to sense when I take the lid off and want to hightail it out of there. Yeah, I raise a lot of Monarchs if you call hundreds a lot. The most I raised was I think in 2007 when I released about 520. This year was 350. It's a ton of work and I want to try to come up with a better way of doing it. You sure get to see a variety of butterflies there. I wish I would get to raise some more kinds. I only saw a Red Admiral here very briefly several years ago. Wouldn't you know it, I didn't have false nettle then. I actually thought I had it here because I have plants coming up here that resemble it but isn't that (don't know what though). So I planted some last year but didn't see any Red Admirals. I'm hoping that I will eventually though. I saw a Common Buckeye here for maybe a minute in 2008 but didn't get a picture of it (dead battery). I planted Verbena hastata in hopes of getting them to lay eggs but didn't see any at all this year. The one I saw last year was nectaring on the Verbena bonariensis. Unlike you, I've never seen any Tawny Emperors here, but I didn't have any hackberry trees here until this past spring/summer. They're not much more than a foot tall, but a Question Mark managed to find them and I raised a few of those cats. I think I've had American Lady cats here every year since I planted some pussytoes that some very nice person got for me. It's kind of hard to cut those leaves off to bring inside and raise the cats in here, so I think I'm going to make an enclosure with some boards and screen (any other suggestions are welcome) and put it over the plants. It will only cover a small portion of the bed. I was thinking I could move all the cats to that area and then move the enclosure as the food supply dwindles. I really don't know if it's a good idea or not, but every year I worry when I don't see the cats on the plants anymore. I think they mostly hide during the day and come out at night though, so I always hope that nothing gets them, but I'd rather be more sure of that with a covering to protect them from wasps and birds, etc. Of course, with as tight as those plants are, I don't imagine that it would be too easy for me to try to find all of the spiders that are on them to remove them. I don't have any overwintering BSTs like I did the past few years because the three that I raised eclosed in the spring/summer. I still have the GSTs here from last year when they overwintered. I think if they don't eclose in 2010, I'll probably take them out of the containers and give them up for dead. Only one of them eclosed out of about 40. I only have 5 out there (in another building, no heat) overwintering from this year. GSTs are discouraging for me to raise because a lot of them die. I feed them rue, but eventually I'd like to try raising them on wafer ash (I just started a couple from seed). I also have gas plants, but they are very small. I hope that my Wild Indigo Duskywings are okay that I have out there bunking with the GSTs. I fed them Baptisia australis and Lupinus perennis, which they are still on but not moving (as far as I know anyway). I've never raised any kind of cats before that overwinter (I mean that the actual cats and not the chrysalids overwinter), so it's making me kind of nervous wondering how in the world they'll be okay in the spring. I don't understand why they don't freeze and die. If they are alive, I hope that they quell their appetites until after my plants have some growth on them. You're absolutely right...every year brings a surprise and I'm so looking forward to this coming year to see what kinds of butterflies and cats I get!!! My head is always so full of plans! You've helped me and I really appreciate it! Cathy

Gary, On another forum, which I probably shouldn't link here since GW doesn't like for us to link competing forums, Steve Owens said that the in-store business was growing at a very rapid rate, much more so than the online business (which was showing continued growth, but not as much as the in-store business), so they had decided to focus only on the in-store business. I have noticed some other small plant companies are dropping the shipping portion of their business too. I read somewhere that it has to do with USPS shipping rates, which continue to increase and especially for anything that is "oversized". Also, the union that represents postal workers has stated publically that the USPS gives volume shipping discounts to the really huge companies and that the small firms, who are not granted those same high-volume shipping discounts, are at a competitive disadvantage, which is causing some of them to stop shipping plants too. That union has been urging the USPS to stop giving the big guys discounts that are not equally extended to the little guys, but have not been successful yet. Dawn

Susan, I got 2011 catalog from Bustani Plant Farm. I think we will have a meeting scheduled at OSU in late April, If time permits, definitely visit and hunt for couple of native plants. Thanks for info -Chandra