Susan, I am seeing the Spined Soldier Bugs along with a bug that I've never seen before! Here is a picture... They all just hang around my Sennas & wait! GRRRR is right!!! I tried using my scissors but they are too fast! I have been squishing any Milkweed bugs I see & have smashed a few beetles that were probably Soldier bugs! I don't have time to "stand guard"!!! I also have a 'Lavendar Lady' Passionvine in a pot(they won't survive our winter) & it is under one of my bird feeders. The Carolina Wrens have pretty much kept the GF cats off it but it has very few leaves & no blooms. I will use a different location for it next spring...just too tempting for the birds! I have been checking daily my milkweed, sennas, & rue but haven't seen any more eggs so far! Just tons of wasps & bugs laying in wait! I keep seeing the females hanging around but haven't "caught them in the act!" I have a new plant that volunteered is definitely in the pea family...I think it is Strophostyles helvola...Trailing Fuzzybean. I'm not sure if it is a host but it volunteered in my BF garden where the Hairy Vetch was earlier this year. I let it grow but haven't seen anything on it so far. I had a ton of Orange Sulphurs this spring but haven't seen any since the host plants dried up! I am still seeing a few Little Yellows as well as Phaon Crescents(they are so tiny!) Sherry, didn't you post a picture of GST eggs vs BST eggs? The cats are so tiny still, I'm not sure if they are all BSTs! Thanks, Lila

I have Little Bluestem, Purple prairie clover, Showy goldenrod, Penstemon grandiflorus, Chasmanthium latifolium, several types of Monarda, and a few seeds for Baptisia australis. Check out my exchange list for a complete list of seeds, most of which are natives. You are welcome to do a SASBE. Send me an email if interested.

I have a passiflora plant I will be glad to send to you. It looks pretty ratty right now (thanks to the ridiculous cold we're experiencing), but produces pawpaws (and wonderful, amazing flowers). Let me know if you are interested.

Susan, for whatever reason, the sleepy oranges don't use the partridge peas here - doesn't make sense. They use the few sicklepods (C. obtusifolia, as I recall) that grow in my garden, which are small. One year I purposely planted sicklepod in a raised bed and fertilized them - they grew to bush size, about 6'X6', so I think I'm going to plant them in that bed next year and plant partridge pea seeds along my roadside. Both sleepy oranges and cloudless sulphurs use sicklepod, and it holds up well in water, which partridge peas don't, so I can bring both types in (also little yellows) and raise them myself if I want to. None of the sulphurs use my C. bicapsularis if the other two types are available. In late winter/very early spring, it's the first cassia to sprout leaves, and the sleepy oranges use them then. DD, I'm 'only' 66 (67 next month), so you've got more of an excuse for not watering than I do. We had a lot of rain in spring and off and on in summer, but it's dry now. I just dread dragging out that hose! And the weeds are awful! I swore I wouldn't let them get out of hand this year, but I did - once the heat set in, it was hard to push myself to go out there! I have arthritis, too, and the body aches are pretty bad - my doctor says if you live long enough, you'll have arthritis, so I guess it's better than the alternative. Aleve and Ibuprofen don't really do the job. My hummingbirds always stay until mid-October, and I keep the feeders up, hoping for an overwintering rufous hummer. I had one a few years ago, and he sure brightened up my winter! I made a picture of him after he had molted, gotten his full gorget, just before he left in March. Now that I've got my big 'Orange Septre' buddleia that blooms in winter and real early spring, any overwintering hummers will have an additional food source. Here he is - you can see his orange gorget (as opposed to the ruby throat's red) and the orange coloring on his body - Sherry