It's not at all unusual for variegation in plants to be unstable and for plants to revert to their green phase after a time. Stability of variegated plants has a lot to do with where the variegation itself originated in the plant. Mutations that originated in a specific layer of meristematic cells have the greatest chance of remaining stable for years to come, but if the mutation originated outside of this layer, the chances of that mutation remaining stable are far slimmer. Variegated plants begin to lose their contrast and turn fully green under low light conditions. Increasing light (to a point) can reverse the trend. Variegated plants need more light than their green counterparts to ward of stress/strain due to low light levels, but they are also unable to tolerate light conditions as bright as their green cousins. This makes them often rather fussy (about light levels), and less vigorous as a result of their reduced levels of chlorophyll (the green pigment so crucial to photosynthesis/food-making). If you move the plant to a sunny location and the variegation doesn't return, the plant has likely reverted. If it does begin to return, watch carefully for the silverish/whitish symptoms of photo-oxidation (sunburn) and move the plant to dappled shade as soon as symptoms appear. When you have a variegated plant, and you want it to remain that way, it's important that you remove branches supporting foliage that is obviously all green as soon as they appear. If you don't, it's very likely the more vigorous green foliage will take over the entire plant. Al

Susan and Mary, Great news on your physocarpa. After reading your post, Susan, I have got to go out and bring in the pods left on the plant before tonight. It is cool and drizzly here this morning, a really gray day. I've got some seed I need to bag up to stratify. Keep looking for variegata seeds, and there just isn't any. The last two plants are in pots in the ground, but I read that the gophers will actually come up above the ground and eat something they like. I will be putting in half inch hardware cloth under the plants and around them this winter so to make a bed to protect them. Purchased Castor Bean seeds, and have treated the soil with castor oil. This has kept the gophers out of the tuberosa so far. Mary, like you, I love the tuberosa. I especially love the "Hello Yellow". The leaves are heartier than the orange. I find eggs on the plants in the spring. It seems I am finding lots to do this season. I have collected seeds from different plants and have been trading and sharing them. It was a good season for plants to put on seeds. I also am cleaning out seed pods from the Passiflora incarnata--they are everywhere. Looking at a new portable greenhouse called a "Convertible greenhouse". It works like a car convertible, and looks like something I could handle and store. Haven't taken the step to purchase it yet. That's the news here in BA. Saw butterflies last week in Austin, but didn't get to get out and chase them. Sandy

I was afraid that heat was causing my problems. Most of my plants are in the shade atleast 6 hours of the day after the first of June. The ones that I use the most are in light dappled shade more than that. I know I lose bud quantity by not being in more sun but since I'm fighting the heat, I figured the shade from my big old oaks would help. This year our weather was really freaky. It was so cool in April and the first of May that I didn't start having blooms until the last week of May. I usually have some the first week in May and by the second week, I'm getting around 100 blooms a day. So, the blooms were late and then, Blammm!! It goes from 40 at night to 95 in the day and the lows only in the 70s. I dare not even try to explain how high the humidity was. Next year, I'm going to be up before dawn putting on pollen. I hate getting up early, but I hate worse working 4 hours everyday for nothing. No, I don't freeze my pollen. I leave it in the vials, in my cool home until I get ready to use it. I don't know the science behind pollen, so I hope pollen doesn't "die" for the lack of a better word??? I did freeze some the first year, but it would sweat in the vials before I could use it and this just didn't work for me. My blooms usually don't have fluffy pollen until around 10am. The ones in the early morning sun fluff up first and then the ones in the shade will be ready to gather by the time I finish gathering the ones in the sun. It's amazing, the little bitty bees can sniff out dry pollen the second it gets ready and they are gone with it before I can get to it!! I use the little light weight hair nets to keep the bees off if they really get to greedy. I sure appreciate the feed back. I thought maybe you had a magic potion to hold the pollen to the pistol or something when you said you were getting such high success. I even wondered if some were wetting the pistol since I see so many photos made with water showing on the petals. Ya'll made me feel some better. Now, I'm going to work on getting my plants in good shape for next year. I need to repot about 300 pots and it will probably take atleast 600 pots to put them into. Sooo I have a lot of potting to do. Any recommendations on good fertilize. I'm using Mircle Grow garden soil in my pots and topping them off with mini pine bark mulch and using MG slow release fertilze. It gets expensive to repot this way, but when you think about paying $50 for one fan, using $3 worth of soil to put it in, isn't outrageous. I just haven't been able to pay $250 for one fan. I'd have to sleep with it to make sure the ______!!! voles didn't eat it. While I'm asking, what's your favorite parents this year? I'm going to purchase about 10 plants later this year, and I'm wanting to get the best pod builders I can. One more question: When the bud count is listed in the description, does this mean the total buds on all scapes for the year?? I have never seen a scape with 50 buds on it. I do good to get 15, most of mine is 8 to 10. I do have some that say they should have 35 - 40. Have a great day, Mona

Hello Milkweed folks, I will be posting the availability of the Asclepias variegata seed from ctnchpr later today on the new MILKWEED FORUM. I wanted to give folks on this thread a little advance notice before I post on the other forum. I have 24 packets of 25+ seeds each to distribute. These seed will be offered on a first-come-first-served basis. The viability looks like it will be low-hence the large number of seed in each packet. Please respond to my private email and NOT on this thread. Those that do use this thread will slip to the bottom of the list. My email address is : wildflowerman_2000@yahoo.com . Please put "Redring Milkweed" in the subject line. Those emails arriving with no subject line will be automatically deleted for security reasons. Happy Sowing!! Regards, Mark (wildflowerman_2000)