That's really something that you've planted SO many trees, Pam! I know you'll enjoy watching them all grow. I think by far the best book for a butterfly beginner would be The Life Cycles of Butterflies by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards. They're brother and sister, and Judy posts on the Butterfly Forum occasionally. The book explains the basics of butterflies, gives examples of their host plants and some of their favorite nectar plants in the authors' area (Kentucky) and has some of the best pictures of eggs and caterpillars out there. Her book includes just about all the butterflies you'll find in the coastal Virginia area. I'm sure its available at Amazon.com, and you might find it at a local book store. I've been weeding and pruning my garden today - hopefully, I'll get it finished soon! Sherry

Hey, I found an interesting article about Virginal Supreme court ruling on tree nuisance. "The court ruled last week that if your neighbor's tree poses a danger to your house, you can force the neighbor to prune or even fell the tree." Just so you know that you may have a right to ask for the neighbor's tree removal if it actually harms your property's foundation, pipes, etc. in the future. But the article says "casting shade or dropping leaves, flowers, or fruit" doesn't count as this type of nuisance. The dispute on the article was also on a sweet gum. ;-) Here is a link that might be useful: Washington Post Article This post was edited by ttonk on Fri, May 10, 13 at 17:18

Dawn, you're more than welcome! You were one of the people who helped me have success with my first veggie garden a few years back (2009) & I'm honestly just in awe of your knowledge & experience. As far as I know from reading the threads of the forum, we live the closest to each other & if it wouldn't seem like a strange thing to offer, I'd love to come help you in your garden if you ever needed help. You seem to really know your stuff & be very interested in your plants, planted & native to your property alike, which I think is awesome. I'm always checking out interesting plants in my yard & in the woods around here on the refuge. I can only hope one day to be the expert that you certainly are. :) I had never seen the Lunas before, but they are very beautiful. My son finds them fascinating & my dogs try to catch them, LOL. I'm pleased to know there is an upside to the spikey balls from hell, besides the fall foliage show. The one in our new yard must be very old, it's so huge that I can't wrap my arms around the trunk & the roots wouldn't be that far exposed if it wasn't, I don't think. It's roots run the entire length of my house. I ran into some when I was hoeing out the side & back flowerbeds & was like "Wow, that's an impressive root system." I think that commelina would be an ideal cover for the shallow soil & I certainly know that it would grow tall enough to cover up those roots. My mom's goes crazy every year & she's already griping about it's height. Usually, she has her yard guys weedwhack it down several times a summer. I told her to let me do it this year & take the cuttings. I'm kinda wanting it to be semi-invasive, because the section I want it to take over is beneath that tree & also the other side of my front yard in the shade of the tree, which is all infested with sticker grass. I had ambitious plans to dig it all out by hand b/c I'd heard that's really the only way to get rid of it...until I realized that about 500,000 of them were scattered all over the whole yard & digging them up is no easy task. They have underground spreaders that break easily & each new place I broke has, within a week, sent up new spikes. Grrr. I've read that stickers don't do well at all with competition, so hopefully the commelina will outcompete & do what I want it to do. I figured I'd try it, anyway. What have I got to lose? It's all free, so no waste of money. This post was edited by faerybutterflye on Wed, May 1, 13 at 9:50

Interesting request, Sandy. I am a flower show judge and make designs for flower shows. The more weird, the better. :-) I saw some last week in a sweet gum tree and thought what a great item to dry (green, of course) to add to a design in the future. As you may know, dried plant material may be treated (painted, lacquered, etc) and used in flower arrangements/designs. My imagination goes wild with the thought of using those round balls/seed pods in a design. Good luck in your hunt... I'd like to know what you plan on doing with yours....