Hi Jaynine and Carol Spot on in ID'ing both plants! What a shame they are not native. they were scattered in a few places in Cape Breton.

If the plants have pesticides they'll probably be something systemic, and so won't wash off, but if you knock off as much of the soil in the pot as possible then the plant won't have access to any more that might have leached into that soil. Any new growth and the flowers should be fine. The whole plant should be fine after a few weeks, once any pesticides used have degraded. it's just a precaution you need to take if you have existing caterpillars and run out of milkweed. You'd probably need to be careful with pretty well all commercially grown plants - they might be deadly for caterpillars. I have been told that I should never use store bought parsley to feed my black swallowtail caterpillars - fortunately I've never run out of my own parsley, so it's never been something I needed to worry about :-) Wooly bears, if they're the black and brown banded sort, are the caterpillars of the Isabella moth. The yellow sorts with the black hairs are Tussock moth caterpillars. They overwinter as caterpillars, and pupate in the spring - the ones you saw had probbly just emerged form hibernation and were looking for a place to pupate. BP

Thanks! I looked up the sandpipers that are seen in NE Canada in summer - this might be a semipalmated sandpiper (same in thread 1).

Greatly appreciate it, BN! Most of the birds I posted here for ID (the Pine Grosbeak, Common Eiders, Osprey, Ring-Necked Kingfisher, the Sandpiper and the Common Yellowthroat) are all lifers for me! Thanks to all who took the time to identify them from not-so-great pictures! This post was edited by ggopal on Mon, Feb 3, 14 at 14:59