Ah, I can see I was not as clear as I had hoped... Seed provenance refers to the specified area in which plants that produced seed are located or were derived. Local provenancing is a position maintained by ecologists that suggests that seeds should be planted of local provenance only. The idea is that within species variability reflects adaptation to the local environment. IOW, not simply 'species X performs best here' (how I read your quoted statements), but species X trees from location Y are adapted to that site and have different characteristics than species X trees from location Z'. I brought this up because I think it's a very interesting phenomenon. I suppose it's a bit off topic if the question is 'Will this particular specimen put on more growth when grown somewhere with a longer growing season.' But it is relevant if you're asking 'why does species X put on more annual growth down south'? The implication is, it's not because they're grown down south but because the local population is adapted to a longer warm season, and such individuals will exhibit a longer growing season wherever they're grown. In other words, it's not so much the environment per se but the intrinsic genetics of the local sub-species population that causes the longer growing season. That's the idea anyway. This post was edited by maple_grove on Tue, Apr 16, 13 at 15:20

Thanks for the info. I buy my mealworms at Southeast Insectaries for $38 and change (includes shipping) for 5,000 large and they do a great job shipping. They include an icepack in the shipping container when the weather turns hot. I keep the worms in a 2" high 6X10 platic container with several holes in the lid. I also tie a small sponge under the lid and keep it damp. I use wheat or oat bran I buy at the Feed Store as bedding for the worms. I only take them out at about 3 weeks and place several slices of apple or potatoe on the top and leave them out of the frig for the day (I'm always sure to remove any apple or potatoe pieces before I return them to the frig so they will not rot). That is the only extra feeding I do and they last until gone.

What a story, ohsoblue. I've also had a crazy season. I had a bluebird box in my backyard with no activity, so I put up another bluebird box out of sight on the side yard. Chickadees started nesting there and there was a beautifully built nest of green moss. I couldn't see inside the nest to see if there were any eggs, but soon it didn't matter. We were out working in the yard and there was a lot of commotion amongst the birds. The chickadee was trying to fight off the bluebirds for her nest and kept on trying and trying. The male bluebird actually took over the nest and built his own for his ladybird. So then by the next day when I checked there was a bluebird nest on top of the neatly built moss nest. This is the box where there are five nestling bluebirds about to fledge any day. So then the chickadee went to be bluebird box in the backyard and built another nest and laid eggs quite quickly. Another bluebird pair kept going back to this box and sitting on it, watching over it, etc. So I begged my hubby to put up another nest box in the front yard and maybe they'd find it and use it. So we got the other house up and eventually they found it and it took about a month for Mr. BB to convince the timid ladybird to take it, but I checked last week and there was 2 eggs. I checked again yesterday after getting back into town and there were 5 bb eggs and 1 chickadee egg, which I removed because I didn't want there to be any problems with the chickadees again.v The bluebirds are watching over this box and seem to be very comfortable and I haven't seen any sign of chickadees in this nest again, but I'll keep checking. Do not give up hope because it took the bluebirds a number of weeks to decide to build in the new nest box in the front yard, but they are doing very well so far. I'm anxious to see if there are any chickadee eggs in the first nest the bluebirds built on top of that one. I'm very surprised that the bluebirds did that.

Tmann you have a box mounted on a tree? Are all you boxes on trees? Im glad you have such a nice nesting season going on but you really need to get your boxes safe. It is only a matter of time before you lose babies or worse. Please go to the www.sialis.org website and learn about being a cavity nester Landlord. We know you are trying to be good to the birds so please read up.