KC, to look at that camera, it's like looking at my old camera. The reviews on amazon are confusing. Some think it's great just in auto, others say you need to mess with the megapixels and the ISO. I have not a clue on either, probably why my pictures look so bad. As far as a camera shop...what's that? My gosh, you'd think in such a small community, we'd have something like that, but I don't think I've seen anything like that. I drive an hour to get to Best Buy. Or I can go to Wally World or Target (Target is 20 miles away). I know I didn't see that camera at Best Buy. I would have bought it if I had! Another great picture Sandy! Doing a search for woolly croton, it came up as an invasive. I don't know though, everything was talking about TX. So maybe only TX has a problem with it...? I have no clue. Elisabeth, I asked at Best Buy about a Panasonic Lumix. I was told they had all low end cameras except for Canon. Canons sell, at this particular store, so that's what they push..sales guys words, not mine. Is yours like the new Sony that you put lenses on? Could I have the model number please? Sherry, what kind of camera do you use? Oh hey! I found 16 more eggs on my buttonbush!

Bernergrrl, To the contrary, I don't think you were sounding critical and I agree with your idea 100%. In fact, I was just going to say the same thing. I think it would be much better to share locally if possible. I was hoping to share seedlings with my neighbors, two of whom were quite smitten with my butterfly raising last year, but I didn't have enough to share. I don't expect other people to raise butterflies, but simply planting some flowers for them and some host plants would be a big help. If we collect wild seeds, the plants will be truly native and well adapted here, and if we share them locally it will help the neighbors, the butterflies, and ourselves. A win-win all around. Around here things are so built up it is not that easy to find native flowering plants. We do have milkweed of various types, though. Last summer I also found some mountain mint which was swarming with bees and butterflies when it flowered. I gathered some seed and planted it and it is doing beautifully. I love that minty smell! Also some wild chelone, but I understand that is difficult to grow from seed. My local park planted a little wild patch for the butterflies with ironweed, milkweed, black-eyed Susan, thistle, and helenium. I saw a pretty good variety of butterflies there last summer, including monarchs, black and tiger swallowtails, lots and lots of clouded and orange sulfurs, and the occasional viceroy or buckeye. There were also lots of pearl crescents in that park in various places throughout the summer. However, I doubt that these plants are truly wild. I think the parks department probably bought seed to plant this area. However, you can say that the plants were well adapted here since they were thriving.

I second Jane's suggestion for organic fertilizer and I also use Espoma. I use Flower-tone, however. Mulching is also an excellent suggestion. The advantages to organics like Espoma is that they usually don't burn the plant, they provide valuable micro-nutrients and really encourage growth and flowering. They break down slowly, so they feed the plants a little at a time for a good long period.

Congrats! Being an avid gardener and photographer of butterflies myself I had gotten fed up with hoping that every time I would go to Botanical Gardens and other places getting hit or miss sightings of butterflies. So I decided to plant my own Butterfly Garden. One plant I knew that I had to have in my garden was Milkweed. Plants are expensive and honestly the seeds are expensive. I found one website that actually sold Milkweed seeds by weight instead of count. I was getting 75-100 seeds per packet. I also ordered a ton of other seeds from them but here is link to there Milkweed.