Susan - I didn't notice that this thread came back to the top earlier this month, so I missed your question - and somebody calling me "famous". Thank you! : ) lol I don't really have any secrets to share though. I never fertilize anything, mostly out of laziness, and I think zinnias are one of those things that do better in poor soil anyway. I do think it looks showier and maybe even attracts butterflies better to plant a huge patch of a single color rather than mixing them. Of the ones I grew last summer, I think Scarlet Flame handled the extreme heat the best. Zowie was my favorite for awhile early in the season but it got some brown leaves late in the summer and struggled. I also grew Violet Queen, Exquisite Pink, and Purple Prince (I think). It's not likely that it will be as hot as last summer again. I may quit gardening if every summer is going to be like that. I went nuts last summer trying to my plants watered so they wouldn't die. I doubt if anything really got enough including my zinnias. I'm giving Zowie another try and planting seeds a little earlier this year. I just sowed some today. Last year and the year before, I sowed seeds around mid June. I used containers this year though because I lost so many last year from various varmints. I will direct sow some too. This year I'm only planting Zowie and Scarlet Flame. I have some seeds that I ordered and also some that I collected last summer. I don't know if those will be worth the space but wanted to see what I get especially from Zowie, maybe some bicolors if the seeds are even any good. They were small. Some zinnias take longer but Zowie and Scarlet Flame started blooming barely over a month from the time I sowed them so it's not too late to plant zinnias for the butterflies folks. : )

Holy crap! What a list. Dude you need to come to the MTPS at least once! I just found out that my fishin' buddy and his wife up in Lenoir City are getting divorced so that may put the kybosh on our spring fishing trips. 30+ years of marriage down the tubes; that is just heartbreaking. He is devastated. I WILL get to a Knoxville swap one of these days though, I promise.

What wonderful photos! Thanks everyone for sharing. I, like many of you, plant my flowers for the pollinators and friends! I just have a camera phone right now, so I miss a lot of the neat discoveries in my garden. Was shocked to have a hummingbird twice in my garden this summer. Ordered a Major Wheeler Honeysuckle already for them this summer. Also missed taking photos of a toad who spent weeks in my garden... whenever I came prepared for him I couldn't find him. He used to hop out from behind plants and about stop my heart. One day he stopped making an appearance. A few beauties I did catch with my camera phone... asking my hubby for a digital camera for my birthday in January. Might make it easier to catch some of my visitors. :o) Michaela

Rhizo, I think that the underside was light, with random black spots and maybe some color. I checked against all of the AR candidates Cupido, Celastrina, Glaucopsyche, Echinargus, and Leptotes. The one that seemed to be closest was Cupido comyntas (the Eastern Tailed-blue). Since those are the only ones in the group to have tails, I rechecked the photo. It's inconclusive, but there could be tails there. If it isn't Cupido comyntas, then the other best guess would be Echinargus isola (Reakirt's Blue). Which one do you think is more likely?