Wendy - butterfly bush is very easy to grow via WS. I WS seeds from Token my first year and they all bloomed this year. Very high seed germination rate with WS. Yes, you can send SASBE for seeds. Cashclan - didn't see anything on your trade list I'm interested in. Do you want the seeds for postage/address label?

I have studied this over time, and can tell you that your husband's fogging with synthetic poisons is the most destructive thing he can do. It will kill all of the mosquitoes, as well as every beneficial insect in the chain, and poison the area as well....and you have small children. Can you spell c a n c e r? That is extreme, but chemicals in the area area absorbed into our bodies, and they are toxic...which is why they kill mosquitoes! They act on the CNS and acucmulate in our bodies. Moreover, studies show, that after your husband kills all the mosquitoes, they will bounce back quickly, and absent any of the natural predators, will become worse than ever. A better approach is to work with nature, and remove the areas that provide mosquitoe larvae it's opportunity...i.e. standng water, moist uncut areas of hedges, etc. Removing their habitat removes them without killing the other insects. As suggested above, using natural approaches is a much sounder approach all the way around. Everybody wins...except the mosquitoes, of course!

I remember when I saw my first Golden Silk spider (the large beauty pictured above)! Having moved recently from the North, I'd never had the 'pleasure' of meeting up with these lovely ladies, before! I was ready to pack my bags and leave the beautiful South, I tell you what! She is Nephila clavipes, often called the banana spider because of her coloration. She wears what I call fur bracelets on each of her 8 legs, a little adornment that I find pretty darned creepy/ By the way, all of the big spiders that we find hanging around in webs are female. This is true with all species. Males are very small, puny, and not good for much other than making more spiders (if they get a chance, lol).

UPDATE: I heard back from Mass Audubon, and it is a Pearl Crescent. So now you all may enjoy this butterfly and know what it is!