Cupshaped, We lived just south of Daytona for over 20 years. We hadn't discovered OGRs, but gave up on the HTs that were sold at garden centers because they were too much work--the constant spraying required was a nightmare. Especially in the heat of summer, when you'd come in needing a blood transfusion from all the mosquito bites. We were on a barrier island, so the "soil" was almost pure sand with a thin layer of leaf litter and pine straw on top. Water & nutrients ran right through it. We found gardening with Florida natives to be a very satisfying, enviromentally friendly way to go. If you want a Florida native that will attract butterflies, get a firebush (Hamelia patens). Wonderful red-orange tube-shaped flowers are great nectar sources for most butterflies, and hummingbirds like them, too. Being a native, it should perform well--there may be a little freeze damage once in a while in Daytona, but it's good to whack the bushes back once in a while, anyway. Another great Florida native for butterflies is Wild Coffee (Psychotria nervosa). Makes a beautiful rounded bush with shiny leaves, small white flowers, and red berries. Zebra longwing butterflies LOVE it. Citrus trees act as larval food for Eastern Swallowtails (the caterpillars look like bird poop, and put out scary red antennae-type things when alarmed, but the butterflies are GORGEOUS.) The caterpillars don't eat that much, so just ignore the few chewed on leaves and wait for them to emerge in all their flying glory. And you can eat the citrus, too. Passionflower vines are larval food for zebra longwings, and have great flowers. Muhly grass is a lovely ornamental native grass that has pinkish blooms. And some of the spartina grasses are also great native ornamentals. Green Images in Christmas, Florida is a WONDERFUL native plant nursery that's not too far from Daytona. Worth a trip over there, and they should have a bunch of natives that will perform well and bring in the butterflies. Depending on your friends' soil, amendments can be tricky. If they're in a real sandy area, the soil is so coarse that it has tons of air & oxygen in it, and organics burn up so fast that you almost can't add them quickly enough to make a difference. Other places are muck (basically swamp bottom) and have much richer soil. The Florida Native Plant Society is a wonderful organization and a great source of information if you want to "go native". Natives are so much easier to grow, provide food and cover for birds and butterflies, and low maintenance to boot. Water rationing is becoming pretty common in Florida, and planting things that will deal with normal rainfall is a way to have a beautiful garden in spite of water restrictions.

> Posted by tom123 > Are there any in your areas? I'm in Central Florida. > very few Queens on my property > five miles away there are many in a state park > In the park I don't see any Monarchs, just Queens I am adjacent to Orlando, near UCF. One Queen every two weeks, staying for one or two days. Same pattern for years. Yesterday a local lady told me of her many Queens. Five miles apart is worlds apart if food is near. Queens in lady's vicinity don't need to travel in search of my milkweeds; and Queens in park's vicinity don't need to travel in search of your milkweeds. Likewise, your monarchs do not need to go to the park. My monarchs DID need to travel after my milkweeds were ruined by rain-soggy soil; and did not need to return after I planted new milkweeds. >I also see them on feces in the park. I don't think that's normal for Monarchs. Is it? Monarchs commonly pause on whatever, and Queens do it even more frequently.

Turf Pro USA sells humate products. They are probably good for what they do but what they won't do is completely restore poor soil. For that you will need to go to the heavy side of organic fertilizing. Have you read the Organic Lawn Care FAQ? There is a copy of it in the Organic Gardening FAQ on GardenWeb as well as several other lawn forums around the Internet. It goes into the use of grains rather than buying commercially bagged fertilizer. Grains are available from your local feed store. Here is a link to feed stores in the Daytona Beach area. They will know absolutely nothing about using their products on a lawn and will look at you like you're crazy. A good place to start would be alfalfa pellets (rabbit food). It comes in a 50-pound bag for about $12. If you buy commercial organic fertilizer with a lot of alfalfa meal in it, you would pay more like $50 for a bag that size. If you are trying to do this in a hurry, apply every month at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. i don't use a spreader. I use my hands and a can to dip the pellets out of the bag. I scatter them like chicken feed. After you apply the pellets, water lightly to melt them so the birds don't swoop in to carry them away. Other than that, other critters should not bother them. The birds might come in and try to get them, and that is a good thing. They will find other critters in your lawn to take a way.

A palm nursery 1 mile from my house has catastrophic damage. Dozens of Coconuts, Royals, Bizmarks, Bottles, Foxtails are dangerously fried. I was very surprised to see the roebellinis and even small queen palms completely fried as well. This leads me to wonder how freaking cold did it get there? My neighborhood is across the street from a small lake and sits on higher ground, so we dipped down to about 30 last week. But if just 1 mile from me roebies and queens are severely damaged, it must have been low to mid 20s there! Either that or the transplant shock coupled with sub freezing weather pushed the palms over their edge. But I did notice several homes immediately surrounding the nursery had much, much more damage than my neighborhood experienced. I guess the high ground and lake were a major player here.