Susan, I haven't seen any butterflies in a while. I think I spotted a black swallowtail a month or so ago, but nothing really since. But...I am gone a lot, so that doesn't really mean too much. My pipevines are starting to grow a little more vigorously. I hope that means I will finally get some pipevine swallowtails this year. I probably don't have enough to really support very many, but maybe a couple. There better be some gulf frits this year or I am gonna really pout. I have enough food for an entire city worth of gulf frit cats! I pulled a bunch of my rampant passionvine last year and I have been keeping an eye out for it to pop up again. I found one in my old compost pile...it traveled a good little distance to get there! I haven't dug it up yet. If you know anyone who wants a start of a thuggish passionvine, I can certainly dig it up for them! Thanks for all the sweet comments! I love this time of year, my garden is always lovely right now. Oh, Susan, I got interested in own root/ogr's when I realized how much trouble it was to grow hybrid teas. I am not very good about anything that takes fuss. I want to stick in the ground, water it and walk away!....and come back to an armful of flowers! I had also lost a rose bush to that rose rosette/mite that was decimating so many roses. All of that led me to spending WAY too much time on all the rose forums! I have lost a number of roses that came into my yard after that, but this one and my Archduke Charles are just outstanding. I will say I learned to be a fan of own root roses after that. I still fight root stock take over on my other roses.

Thistle, sure I wouldn't mind--it's nothing complicated at all. I normally keep mine outside until it gets close to when we will recieve our first frost. I think doing so helps prepare the vine for dormancy or semi-dormancy. The vines, which have normally grown so long that they are attached to any nearby growing trees and shrubs, are clipped back so they are just at the top of the poles I have in my pot. The pot is then moved into my unheated garage which has southern exposure via the garage windows facing south where it sets until the following spring. The garage is uninsulated and the door is opened several times a day all winter long so the plant does experience near freezing temps at points over the winter. The residual heat from the two cars that are parked in the car daily helps to raise the temps a bit over the winter but there are no heating ducts in the garage. After first being moved into the garage, the plant will still attempt to grow due to the warmer temps in the garage and the available sunlight. I continue to water the plant at this stage just enough to keep the soil moist, but more on the dryish side so I may water twice a month or so. At some point over the winter when the temps gets low enough, the vines stop growing and the leaves will begin yellowing and falling off--this normally happens over the course of several weeks. Don't be alarmed at this at all-has happened to mine both years I have overwintered it. At this point (when the leaves start yellowing and falling off), I cut way back on watering the pot---maybe once a month or so. As spring approaches with warmer temps, I start back up the watering when I see evidence of new leaf and vine growth starting--twice a month or so. Once temps have warmed back up to where it is safe to move outside, I cut off most of the growth since if I move it outside all at once, the new leaves and vines formed will be sunburned. I also remove any dead vines that might be present. I have been rather severe in cutting back vines-both old and new- and not had it affect the plants at all. Once outside, I resume watering and begin fertilizing as needed. I personally don't try and move it back and forth outside on warmer days and inside on colder days in the early spring because I don't want the plant to use its energy reserves producing foliage prematurely that will be cut off prior to moving it back outside permanently in the spring. Hope this helps. If you need any more information, email me directly since I am leaving this morning for a vacation on the NC coast and won't be back until Sunday Oct 9th. I will try and answer any questions once I am back. Good luck with your Vigna caracalla plants!

Amy, I have seen lots of bees and butterflies at basil flowers, so I guess I wouldn't be too surprised to see hummingbirds there too. As they migrate, they do desperately search out every possible nectar source they can find. It takes a lot of "good eats" to fuel their long journey south. I can always tell when the hummingbirds are migrating because all of a sudden our hummingbird feeders become insanely busy. While our resident hummingbirds tend to spend a lot of time in the garden visiting all the flowers there and often don't even visit the nectar feeders at all, the migrants tend to zoom right in on the feeders and then hang around them for hours (or even days) as they rest and fuel up for the next portion of their journey. They eat as if they are starving and cannot eat enough. Last night we had the most visitors at our front porch hummingbird feeders that I've ever seen. There were maybe 20 or 25 hummingbirds fighting over two feeders. Each feeder had a hummingbird at every feeding port, several hovering around and trying to force their way in and more zooming back and forth between the two feeders trying to force their way in. It was crazy and we watched through a window in amazement. It was near twilight and they were eating fairly greedily. I am not sure if this was a bunch of new migrating hummingbirds that had just found our house and the feeders or if they are the ones that have been around the last 3 or 4 days all trying to get their final meal of the night or what. Usually it is a busy evening if there's 3 or 4 at each feeder and last night's numbers far surpassed that. I think I have another couple of feeders in the garage that we haven't been using because our resident hummers just don't visit the feeders when I have lots of flowers in bloom. I'm going to search for those other feeders this morning and if I find them, I'll make more nectar and fill them and hang them. Because of the flash drought we have almost no flowers blooming in our pastures now, so I think it is possible these hummers have been having a bit of a hard time finding enough flowers in bloom as they journey through southern OK. Jessaka, We cut cedars whenever we have time, though only in winter since the only cedar trees left on our property are in the woods. We used to have tons of them in our pastures but worked away steadily at taking them out. We'll never get rid of the really big ones at the back of our property as they are 40-60' tall and so dense you cannot cut one because it wouldn't fall over---the surrounding trees would hold it up. Still, we're determined to keep the rest of our property from being overrun by cedars. We have vines (grapevines, Carolina snailseed, peppervine and others) climbing all over many of our hardwoods, but almost never see a vine climbing a cedar. I'm not sure why. After we cut some of the cedars in our fields, the bare soil that used to sit beneath the cedar stayed barren for a couple of years as if the soil was somehow poisoned and nothing would grow there. Eventually and very slowly the pasture grasses did creep back into the soil but it took years for it to happen. So many fields here have become wall to wall cedar trees growing so thickly together you cannot walk through the field or drive a tractor through it. It is a sad sight to see. Dawn

WOW! This seed pod is growing big time FAST!!!! it is nearly ready to pick or pop open already. It is nearly the size of a gold ball. That is the size they get, just before they ripen. And it is a whitish/yellow color now. The green one puts out green pods, then they turn this color. This one skipped the green stage and went straight to white/yellow. This is going to be VERY interesting. Has anyone grown this plant from seed? To give me tips on planting them? I thought i would have over a month, before I would need this info. BUT at this rate, it will be ready in a week? At most!! All the unfertilized 'seed pods' have fallen off the plant, this is the only one left, like I said, it never gets fertilized by whatever does it to the 'regular' variety.