Edna, Well, even though I lived in Carmel, my office in Pacific Grove was only about two blocks from the Monarch butterfly trees on the Monetrey Peninsula. I often took breaks just to go sit and watch the Monarchs. So technicaly I saw their migration and winter swarms every year when I lived there. BTW, have you ever gone down to the Feast of Laterns in Pacific Grove? It's their version of the Chinese Legend of the Blue Willow where the lovers turn into immortal Monarch's instead of doves. So the entire area celebrates the Monarchs all week long. It's quite a week in mid summer with lots of festivities, a parade, ending the last day/night with a pagent, reenactment of the legend on the beach at Lover's Point and fireworks. When I lived there I was a parade marshall for all the parades in the area (including the Butterfly Parade that week), and as a member of Kiwanas I helped put on the fireworks show for it. But then way back then the Peninsula was "small town", so you got involved in everything (including the politics).

Randy, I harvested seed from some local fields of the A. viridis here in North Texas this spring & scattered it in my wild flower area across the back of my property. I also dug up a few plants that I found to be almost impossible until I got out my sharp shooter shovel...the plants have a very deep tap root & were in very rocky, hard, dry soil. I was able to start about 3 or 4 plants & planted them out in my wild flower area, also. They disappeared during the heat of the summer here but have resprouted now that the temps have come down & the rains have been happening. I have a lot of annual tropical milkweed growing as well. I had only a few plants of it make it through our winter here even though I mulch all of them with leaves to protect them. It has been raining so much since I got back from Colorado that I haven't seen any migrating Monarchs yet. I think this is the week that they usually come through here & especially in Fort Worth, I've seen thousands in trees during the evenings in years past. I haven't raised any this year as of yet because I have been concentrating on BSTs, GSTs, & PVSTs. I have a few cats out on my milkweed right now & am planning to bring in some this month to raise protected. Not many make it to pupate here if I don't.

You may remember that I plant seeds of Coral Vine (Antigonon leptopus) this year, MissSherry? My vine got about 6' tall, albeit rather spindly. I am going to mulch it well hoping it will overwinter. I got my seed from The Sample Seed Shop. Weird seeds. Anyway, there are some sites that list it as hardy to zone 7, others say to zone 8. We'll see. I had 3 Monarchs nectaring in the garden yesterday. The Sunflowers have pretty much faded, but the Golden Crownbeard is in its full glory, as is the Tropical Milkweed, orange Cosmos, and Mistflower. They seem to really enjoy the Mistflower right now. Susan

Well, out in the northwest here, migration starts in Mid July when Hummers start leaving the mountains where they mostly breed and head to the valleys and then move south. Mountain flowers start to dwindle by mid summer due to lack of summer rains. So they breed early and move out early. Which, is good for people like me who live in the valleys and don't get hummers as breeders. My hummers start showing up at the end of June and stay until about early September. It is definitely possible for migration in MI to start now. In fact, it would be surprising if any male Ruby-throats were even left up there as many begin to leave after females finish nesting and the chance to breed is eliminated. BN