I'm still anticipating that set the butterflies free moment. Obviously I've had multple visits from female Monarchs. I'm at the old place right now getting ready to go out in the garden. What surprises will I find out there today? First order of businness, check all the milkweeds, then emancipate the 2 butterfly bushes that are completely covered with those darn morning glories.

No cats at the old place, but oh, what a mess! I think I'll bring the machete with me when I come back here again lol. The common milkweeds here are further along and they don't look very fresh, but there are a few leaves I can use. I did find 3 Salvia coccinias, and a tall Verbena that I'm taking back to the new place for the hummers and butterflies. I think a tobacco worm must have eaten my tall red Nicotiana while I was gone.

Sometimes it doesn't take long for an unattended garden to become a mess. Whatever this 'old place' is, I say take along what you can!

I do maintenance throughout the day when I can, popping out and in as the sun pokes behind clouds. I just heard the weatherman report we'll have heat indices ('feels like' temps) well over 100 -- heck, it felt like 99 right around noontime. But I know if I just hunker down in the A/C for several months, no way I'll want to face my yard when the weather cools down.

I just saw my first Red Spotted Purple this year. I never knew that it and the White Spotted Purple were the same species. They are all Red Spotted Purples around here, but when we used to vacation in northern Wisconsin, they were White Spotted Purples.I think Viceroys are closely related to them. Not sure when I last saw a real Viceroy, because they look so much like Monarchs, especially from a distance. It was overcast here this morning, but now the hot sun is out. My tuberosa is still blooming at the old place, and I need to save my incarnata, which is engulfed by other plants. I saw some kind of mint plant over there and at first I thought it was more of my rampant Monarda fustulosa. It looked a little different though, so I crushed a leaf and it smelled lemony with a bee balm undertone. If it turns out to be Monarda citriodora, that would be the icing on the cake!

There was a bigger cat on the top of the hamper last night, so I left it, and when I went out later,with a flashlight, it had dissapeared. This morning it was back, and I was going to move it, but it was attached to silk. I didn't think it was ready, but I just checked, and it made a crysalis. I have some moreg gardening and watering to do later when it's cooler. I saw a big fat toad on the patio last night. Glad I got them all in cages.

Wow jay, you sure sound busy. A thunderstorm 2 days ago flattened a lot of my plants. Since it’s mostly in my big wild flowerbed in the back, I am not sure I will tie them up. The pollinators don’t seem to mind. So many weeds to deal with. Going to look up the Monarda you mentioned later.

Phew -- close call with that toad!

Yeah, I love toads though. There's a forest preserve with 2 large ponds and the Illinois/ Michigan canal nearby, so I will let them be, but at the other place I would catch them and bring them to the ponds. Iris, the Monarda citriodora has more bloom clusters along the stem. I had a few seedlings of it this spring, but they fizzled out. Maybe not enough sun, and too much water. I'm going to winter sow the seeds next time, I think I'll have better results. My Aslclepius tuberosa looks good. I had 2 nice sized tuberosas that died. I may have overwatered them because they were close to the Barbara's Buttons that I was obsessed with trying to grow. The Marshallias never bloomed, or made it, what a dissapointment! Anyone who is growing that plant with ease, should count their blessings. I've noticed that a lot of the big butterflies really love the bee balm.

I was out watering a few things this morning because today is going to be the hot one. I noticed another Monarch cat on one of my three tropical milkweeds. They are all about 2 feet tall, and just starting to branch. I was looking at my swan milkweed 'stick' and was shocked to see another cat on that! maybe 3rd instar. Apparantly another female laid an egg on it, and the poor little guy was surviving by chewing the new leaf buds forming in the nodes. Now I'm praying for a miracle as far as ever seeing that milkweed in bloom. I planted a sickly Gazania that needed more sun, and a Verbena tenuisecta that needed richer soil, in the pot with it, so either way the pot will attract butterflies. I really like growing the native Verbena tenuisecta for the butterflies. They will flock to it, and ignore the Verbena hybrids sold at garden centers. Ladies especially come to mind. There were a lot of them on it. The tall Verbena bonariensis is another great butterfly plant that self seeds very much. I grew the stiff globe Verbena once. I think it's hardy further south, but not by me. Now the Rose Vernena, Glandularia canadensis, I tried growing that twice, but it would't return in my zn. 5a/6b. The second time I grew it, it was so lush, and vigorous, and sprawling everywhere. What a shock when it didn't return the next spring. I'm guessing our wet winters must rot its roots. I'm so ill prepared as far as having enough milkweeds. I will be planting tons of milkweed seeds for next year. And tons of it in pots too. I have a huge, tall old Blue Spruce. Some plants, that can handle shade are growing under it, in a big circle thats a nice sized area. The idea just popped into my head, while I was out there, that I could plant several Poke Milkweeds under there, and they would do great. Asclepius quadrifolia ( the milkweed with only 4 leaves) would do great in that shade too, if I could only get my hands on some seeds for it. I harvested a couple common milkweed stalks, and used javi's wet paper towel method. Sooo much easier! One last thing about the Verbena family. Porterweed is said to produce more nectar, more often, than any other nectar plant. I am planning on trying it out, for the butterflies and hummers. I can only grow it as an annual up here, and they will need to be started indoors under light's, which is fine, because I will be starting my Calotropis milkweed trees under lights anyways. People say that kids grow up fast, but Monarch cats......OMG!

Jay: Might not be too late to move the little cat onto a tropical, and maybe even isolate in the cage so it doesn't have a chance to meaner over to the swan MW. If you'll recall, I found a probably-3rd-instar cat on my UnID'ed little MW plant, nibbling away -- it wandered away from the tropical to molt, and decided to stay! I moved it back onto the tropical, and it was fine.

People say that kids grow up fast, but Monarch cats......OMG! << Yup, esp when one isn't standing over them every hour of the day (a la a watched pot never boils).

Oh I immediately moved it to a tropical, and he seemed delighted. I looked in the cage and there was one on the top pupating, and another was up there molting. Does anyone put butterfly feeders with sugar water out for them? I thought it would be nice to have them in the cages, when they emerge, so they can start out with a lot of energy, or am I overthinking it? It makes me sick to think of all the fruit that gets thrown away, that butterflies would love to get their probosci into. Had to look that word up lol.

I think if you think you might be gone for more than a few hours when the Monarchs are likely to emerge, maybe consider putting a sugar-water soaked sponge or cotton ball in a small bowl. I read some people do this. Monarchs seem to eclose first thing in the morning (9-10 am the latest), and I'm always here around that time and am checking. As it is, they hang to dry their wings for 2-3 hours anyway, so it's not as if they need a super-quick burst of energy.

I saw some feeders, and do it yourself feeders using sponges. I got rid of all my sponges, because.......can't afford to support nobody else LOL! Actually I'll get a natural sponge,, they are supposed to be better for the Monarchs. Saw another Skipper that was way too fast to i.d., and a cabbage white around the Nasturtiums. I do get Cabbage White cats on Nasturtiums and Cleomes. They are pretty good at finding available hostplants. This is all pretty new to me, raising so many cats at once. I think as a kid I would raise one at a time, but they were so plentuful back then. It's really hot and dry. Not as hot as Houston, but HOT!!!!!

Jay, since you mentioned them yesterday, see what I found today!

I'm not familiar with frogfruit Iris. I don't think they carry it at garden centers up here. I may have seen Mexican Sweet Herb before, but never made the connection that it was a Verbena. I thought it was a mint. Nearly everything I read about Buckeyes never mentions frogfruit as one of their hostplants. I enjoy growing herbs. I wonder if the Buckeye cats would eat the Mexican Sweet Herb. That is so awesome that you have a viceroy cat.

It’s a red spotted purple, I think. Since it is on a wild black cherry. I have never seen a cabbage white caterpillar on my cleome. I am a bit torn if I should plant something for them.

Oh, yes I guess the Red Spotted Purple cats do look like bird doodoo too. Cleomes and Nasturtiums are closely related to brassicas. I think you can pickle both Cleome and Nasturtium green, unripened seeds to use like capers. I think capers might even be a species of Cleome. I guess I have a soft spot for CWs. Vegetable gardening is more than I can handle, but some purple ornamenal kale would go nicely with the flowers. Many years ago Sulphers and Dogfaces were as common as Cabbage Whites up here. The yellow and orange ones have completly dissapeared. Maybe it's because so many host plants have dissapeared, while people continue to grow cabbage family plants for food everywhere. Thanks for sharing the frogfruit plant. I will be growing Sweet Herb next year Lord willing!

I do like the Cabbage Whites. I was just torn to plant something for them since they are not native. Kind of weird since I am here with a green card myself. And they certainly have been here longer.

Either I forgot, or I never knew that they weren't native. The one good thing is, they aren't wreaking havoc with the enviroment. I plant these flowers for me, and the hummers, and the pollinators, not as host plants for Whites. They are just really good at finding many kinds of plants to lay their eggs on. Actually I'm happy that there are some places where the Monarchs have been introduced and aren't native, like New Zealand and Hawaii. If North America completly fails, and loses all it's Monarchs, there will still be a couple populations left to try and bring them back, but we're never going to let that happen.

Javi, I wan't to hear about all the new plants and seeds you got. The cats are doing ok. I'm going to try to get about 4 swamp milkweeds and 4 butterfly weeds tomorrow. I just gave the cats some fresh milkweed from the other place. I was looking for the incarnata over there, but couldn't find it. I think it might haven gotten smothered by other plants. I excavated the butterfly bushes from a truckload of morning glories, and watered them real good. I watered the Ceanothus good to. The drought is taking a toll on my plants at the old place, and I can't always get over there to water. Over here, at the new place I've been watering everything, except some plants way in back in the shade. There is a colony of wild ginger back there, and it was wilted, so I watered them real good too. I noticed a nibbled leaf. That would be great if I get some pipevine swallowtail cats on them. I haven't seen any action on my rue and fennel. Usually I see more Black Swallowtails then Monarchs and Tigers. This year I'm seeing more Monarchs and Tigers than Blacks. I have purple flowered nightshade growing in all the shady areas around the house. I'm always ripping it out. This nightshade has roots that travel underground and produce suckers. I think the one you showed on name that plant is easy to get rid of just by pulling it out by the roots. I've tasted the dark berries before, and nothing bad happened. With the drought lasting so long, it's hard to find milkweeds in good condition. The ones at the old place look real tired also. If I had known I was going to have so many cats, I would have been watering them regularly.

Oh, I take back the nightshade comment. I looked up deadly nightshade, and that's not what I have. Javi, remeber that picture of the milkweed you have that hadn't flowered yet. Well, has it flowered yet?

Jay: Yes, I easily pulled up the several nightshade plants I found. The little area where I found them was still boggy and wet from recent rains (thank goodness it finally rained a few days this past week!), so roots came up easily. Crossing fingers for pipevine SWTs on your ginger -- nibbles are a good sign.

Last week, my backyard was just a wonderful flurry of activity -- at one time, there were two monarchs and a black SWT all fighting over my milkweed/pentas area. My heart just sang! A cabbage butterfly cruised by, and a gulf frit popped in and out. Lots of monarch eggs on the milkweeds, and I've got almost 17 baby cats harvested and in containers.

I'm experimenting with methods for preventing wilty leaves on the MWs I harvest. It's clear water isn't being drawn up and reaching the leaves. A few common sense (to me, anyway) things to consider: 1) To prevent the sap from healing and closing off the cut end too quickly, I give the stalks a fresh cut under water; 2) So the cut stalks don't have to fight gravity by pulling water upward, I lay the stalks almost horizontal, with tips submerged in water. 3) The stalks sap up very quickly, so I tried to 'increase' the uptake channels by poking a pin into the stalk ends several times. (Some people just mash the ends of the MW stalks for the same effect, but I haven't had a ton of luck with that.)

I used this ^^^ method today with stalks measuring ~ 12" long. After about an hour, the lower branches looked fine, but the topmost leaves were starting to wilt. So, I cut the stalks in half (same technique w/ making cuts in water, poking extra holes in the stem ends with a pin, etc.), reasoning that the water would have less distance to travel to reach the leaves. At this moment, the wilty leaves have completely revived. Yay!

I won't want the leaves submerged in water (they'll rot), so I'll place the cuttings vertically in water once I feel the leaves are fully hydrated.

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On to my plunder! :)

Not mentioned in my other post, by these kind neighbors also sent me home with some of their beautiful peppers:

Will throw together a yummy sausage/pepper/mushroom/egg pasta dish tonight.

I also received a white veined pipevine and a Turk's cap plant, potted!

(This couple was so generous: I'd originally inquired if I might purchase seeds from them in the fall, and they invited me over to take home plants!) I'm chomping at the bit to get these into the ground as I have the perfect shady area. Just need to make sure I coddle them in this heat for a little while -- and reconfigure the sprinklers for the long term.

My baggies of seeds: pipevine (neighbor says she has a tough time germinating plants from seeds, but she has so many plants sprouting up every year, she really doesn't need to rely on seeds; I soaked a few overnight and have them in pots to see how they'll do), Gregg's mistflower (YAYYYY! These were on my wish list for next year.), and purple coneflower. I'm feeling so impatient, and want to start a few mistflower and coneflower now. If I fail, or if winter decides to come too quickly this year, I'll still have plenty of seeds for next spring. Whadya say, Jay? Go for it?

PS I actually have a couple of mystery MWs and, no, neither has bloomed yet. I'm on the lookout for flower buds, but am seeing only leaves as new growth.

Well, you have a longer growing season down there in Texas so you can get away growing things down there I can't. I wouldn't try starting coneflower and mistflower up here now. But if you plant those seeds now, there's a good chance they will put on enough growth to survive the winter. I love Texas wildflowers like Bluebonnets and Standing Cypress. I can't grow the true Texas forms of them here because the growing season is too short here. In Texas when those plants get done blooming there seeds have enough time to germinate and put on first year growth before winter. Then the following spring those plants bloom and the process starts all over again. They have a name for those plants. I think they call them winter annuals or something. I have seeds for blue mistflower too. I like the striped ginger and the turks cap. I tried growing a striped ginger once. It didn't do well, probably was too cold for it. I got 4 nice sized swamp milkweeds and 4 tuberosas at the nursery today. They were out of tropical milkweeds, but I got a Cuphea for the hummers. I'd like to have a look at your mystery milkweeds, when you have a chance. Everything seems to be working out. I was planning on sacrificing a couple Basil plants, and replacing them with the swamp milkweeds. It just so happens that I'm having crab and shrimp raviolli with pesto tonight. Yes I was wondering if there was a way to make the milkweed leaves stay fresher longer. I've been seeing traffic problems on the milkweeds, maybe their version of road rage.

OK, here's mystery MW#1, which I think is A. incarnata/swamp MW since that's how the baggie was labelled. These three are in a large pot. Tallest one is pushing 3'. It's really odd that, starting today, the lower leaves are very droopy. I water this pot well -- on days like this, 2-3 times a day. The pot drains well. Perhaps full day sun + 90+ degree weather is just too much for swamp MW. Most mature leaves are 3" long -- very long and slender, and come to a point at the end.

I also have one of the same type growing in the beds (must have sprouted from a seed that found its way there). Same dimensions, etc., except lower leaves are not droopy. (Bed gets morning to 3 p.m. sun these days.) Rust disease is an issue in this bed.

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Mystery plant #2 as follows (I have two that sprouted in the beds ~ March). After all these months, they're not quite 12" tall.

Very small, 1" leaves with a definite crease down the middle.

The only reason I think this is a MW is a baby cat was munching leaves this past spring. However, I just broke off a piece, and no milky sap was apparent.

Are you up for a mystery milkweed from me, too? I bought it as an aquatic milkweed a couple of years ago. I was just amazed how long it has been flowering, so I wanted to look it up. It says everywhere that the buds would be pink on the unopened flowers. Well. Mine might have a tiny bit of pink in the center, but not at all like the images I have seen. Here is mine.

Thanks for all the info, Jay. I passed along to my new neighbors the various comments regarding their probably-verbena, and I'm sure they can go from there. They did say whatever it is, the butterflies do indeed love it.

I planted a tuberosa last fall. And while it came back after our harsh winter -- and is flowering -- I can't say that it's flourishing. If the two mini-mysteries are also tuberosa (thanks for the reminder that tuberosa don't have milky sap), they're falling in line with the parent and aren't growing vigorously. I'll just let nature take its course.

I can't remember where in all my tons of scouring the internet, but I recall reading that some MW varieties (likely the ones I'm interested in this year, so possibly incarnata and syriaca), when sprouted from seed, may not bloom during their first year. Regarding applying a bloom booster to the incarnata, I've already been regularly fertilizing with a balanced fertilizer (so, plenty of the "P" in NPK). I'm thinking if the incarnata want to bloom, they will. :)

We had another monarch hang around for quite a while yesterday afternoon, laying eggs on everything in site -- including the incarnata. I'm so nervous about not having enough MW, with fall being a busy butterfly time, I went ahead and started more tropical seeds germinating.

A conversation started up on a different thread yesterday about dragonflies (scroll down to my cool leafhopper posting), and they usually go after flying prey. So, baby cats are safe from them.

I guess if you're really concerned about running out of MW, and yet the butterflies continue to lay eggs, I guess you could cover the MW plants until leaves replenish. Another option is if you're tapped into any kind of neighborhood social media, see if you can take your cats over to someone else's MWs in case all your plants get stripped. Worth a try, and a great way to meet your neighbors.

That's funny. I was thinking that. There is a house that I pass on the way to HD that has a whole colony of syriaca in the front yard. I was thinking of ringing their bell, and offering them cats if things were to get really out of control. I was thinking it would be no easy task to try and cover a 13 ft.high milkweed with tuille. Would probably need a ladder lol.

OMG, Jay -- 13 ft high?! I had no idea they can get this large -- in your climate, anyway. Wow.

I'd bet anyone growing an entire colony of milkweed on their property would be completely on board w/ helping out.

The giant Calotropis gigantea can get thirteen feet high in the tropics. I'm going to start them under lights in November, because they can take up to three months to germinate, and I want decent sized plants when I plant them next spring. I really doubt they will grow the whole 13 ft. for me, but I'll be happy if it gets 5 or 6 ft. The leaves are very thick, as you can see in the pictures. It sort of looks like a common milkweed on a whole bunch of steroids. There's a colony of prairie milkweeds down the road. I was going to harvest a bunch of their seeds. I can send uou some with some silky yellow tropical seeds if you like. I wish I could share some of my new seeds, but they come in packs of 10, so based on past mistakes, I need to sow all 10 seeds just to ensure I will end up with a few survivors. I have a couple extras, I can share with you too. There is Poke Milkweed ( if you have some shade), and A. arenaria, sand milkweed I think. That would be a good one for Texas. Try to keep your eyes peeled for Texas Milkweed seeds, A. texena.

I love seeing all the dragonflies swooping about. Every time one lands, it seems like an entirely different type than the last. But when I try to approach for a pic, they vanish -- very skiddish for being such predators!

That potted Calotropis gigantea is gorgeous -- kinda reminds me of a fiddle leaf fig. I'm a sucker for sage green leaves. And those that reach 13'? I can't imagine how many monarch eggs/caterpillars it would take to strip one of those down to nubs.

Thanks for your kind offer of MW seeds. I think I'll a rain check for now, as I don't want to waste them. I'll have my hands full with the new plants and seeds recently gifted to me. But, maybe next year!

Less lawn, more garden. That's gonna be us starting this fall. I've already got my eye on an area towards the back of the yard, and DH has already promised to swap out the current lawn sprinkler heads for more beefy ones to hit the beds. Force of a lifelong habit, but I can't do without some grass; think of it as a palate cleanser. :)

Let's be optimistic about your neighbors: maybe more are growing natives than you think, but they're all in the backyards that you can't see. Maybe? BTW, when I use the term 'neighbors' for my new acquaintances, they actually live several miles away. Within my immediate neighborhood, there's not a whole lot of 'recreational' planting going on. I think there's nothing happier than a front yard full of flowers, but anymore all that appear in people's yards are what's minimally required by the HOA. Not judging at all, as I understand people are busy, and gardening takes a ton of work.

Bonus purple milkweed seeds...yippee!!

I can and do see into all my neighbors back yards and they aren't growing any natives other than Virginia creeper ,poison ivy and hackberriers all thanks to the birds that like to flock to my area to hang out in the old Oak trees. Why not use a native lawngrass? I should talk, I still have Kentucky Bluegrass for all my lawns, but if I was rich rich I'd have it all ripped out and replaced with Buffalo grass. I'm trying to grow more host grasses for the skippers and other butterflies that use them. But stuff like lake sedge grows 9 feet tall, and grows in water so that's not going to fly. Got to go and find some fresh common milkweed. Hope I don't get burs in my socks again lol. If you keep all your seeds in the fridge, in an airtight baggie, inside an airtight container they can last for a very long time ime.

Good luck! I finally had a Monarch around again today and pretty sure laying eggs. She was in my back wild flowerbed, will check tomorrow. Still have my tussock moth on the common milkweed in the front. They are eating a lot and growing fast. They are awfully cute though. Still for the most part having bad hair days.

Hilarious, Iris! Hope they leave some for the monarchs.

Happy foraging, Jay. I was visiting my son several weeks ago in Austin, and told him I might just cruise around the fields around his place and look for milkweed. His reply: Better not, mom. Knowing you, you'll stumble into a patch full of poison ivy and not know it.

He's right. I'd better just stick to my safe routes for MW. :)

Wow! Iris, those moth cats are so cute. I used to see them a lot on common, and prairie milkweeds. I went to the preserve to look for fresh milkweed. I was checking real good to make sure I didn't take any with eggs or cats. There were some pretty yellow flowers so I took pictures. As I was trudging through the beautiful 7 ft. tall grass I found a colony of very green, lush, prairie milkweeds. They looked great with the deep red stems and leaf veins. Hopefully my cats will like it. The prairie milkweeds down the street look ratty because of the heat and drought, but the ones I found tonight were pristine. The ratty ones bloomed and have seedpods. The lush ones hadn't bloomed.

I went to the woods to look for clearweed for the Red Admirals. I made it a little ways on the path by the river around where they grow. I ran into a huge patch of poison ivy and decided it wasn't worth it and left. Once I had the rash so bad that I ended up in the hospital. I still like to walk in the woods. I just avoid touching it whenever possible.

Javi, my Black Swallowtail is due to emerge tomorrow. Do your Swallowtails and Monarchs always emerge after the same amount of days, or does it varry?

In this very warm/hot summertime weather, BSTs have been emerging in the 8- to 10-day range. I haven't documented the monarchs this year, but I believe they're in the same range. It's much easier to determine when monarchs will emerge as the chrysalises darken the night before. BST chrysalises, unfortunately, offer no such clues. One morning, surprise!, and there they are. :)

I have the BST crysalis in the shade. Is that ok, or should I put it in the sun?The top of the cage will shade it. Here's another dumb question. We had a storm last night, and that cage got knocked on it's side. The ground is soft because its covered in leaves. If somebody were to place the cage with the crysalis upside down. How would that effect the crysalis? I know it can't be a good thing because of gravity, just like if we hung upside down for a long time all the blood would rush to our heads, and then they would explode, ha,ha, just kidding. I murdered 2 earwigs. They like to spend their days in the soft youngest leaves of my common milkweeds. There's been a lot of egg laying going on, and I don't want any eaten by earwigs. It's really strange, there are tons of milkweeds at the preserve that's a block from my house, but I don't see any cats on them, yet they all flock to my yard to lay their eggs. Maybe the females know somehow that we will protect and care for their babies. I saw three hummingbirds yesterday, and this morning there was a doe with twin fawns browsing in my backyard. I pulled all the foliage off some ratty looking daylillies, and that space they are taking up is perfect for my 4 new tuberosas and the remaining pot of incarnata. I want to get a plant of the Ice Ballet, white flowered incarnata and plant it in that space too. Then I can have a drift of swamp milkweed in mixed colors.

LOL, Jay. I do love your energy. :)

While I've been very happy to see a couple of ladybugs and assassin bugs monitoring my tropical MWs and chomping aphids, I realize they may also be eating the baby cats. Oh, well. Right now, I've got at least 25-30 monarch cats keeping me plenty busy. (I continue to have the worst time keeping my MW cuttings from wilting, and I've tried every technique at my disposal. I wonder if it's just the season. During springtime, I would harvest the MW branches, rinse them off, and jam them into jars -- they stayed fine for days. Now, I can't keep them 'alive' more than a few hours.)

I keep my chrysalises out of the direct sun if I can. These days, with highs in the mid 90s ('feels like' temps well over 100), I don't want to take any chances frying my chrysalises. I have them outdoors, but in all-day shade. I wouldn't worry too much about the toppled cage. I've read online that BST chrysalises that have fallen down from their perches, and ended up just lying horizontal, eclosed perfectly fine. Sounds like they're fairly resilient creatures. (That said, I still have a chrysalis that formed June 13, and it's still just hanging.)

I applied some fertilizer (listed as 'starter') with a higher middle/P number to the incarnata early this morning, so let's see if that encourages some blooming. Regardless, monarchs are laying eggs on them, and baby cats are munching the leaves. I'd just like to see some pretty pink flowers.

The coneflower seeds I received have already germinated! I'm hoping the plants will get going before long, and I'll give the local hummers yet another reason to visit me. My lone tithonia looks vibrant and is coming along -- I need to give DH constant reminders that it's not a giant dandelion that he should pluck out of the bed. Wondering at what height it will be before it flowers.

Usually, by late summer/August, I don't even think about my yard/garden again until next spring. This year, I'm very excited that we have another couple of months of growing season.

Does any of you grow milkweed vine? The Monarchs hardly use it, but I have more tussock moth on there.

Which milkweed vine are you talking about Iris? There are a few. There's Tweedia, with it's turquoise flowers. I have seeds for it. From what I've read, Monarchs don't use it, but a lot of sellers say it's a Monarch host plant, just to sell more seeds. There are the Cynanchum milkweed vines. I tried growing one of those. It never did good, and didn't come back the next spring. I'm planning on growing the Tweedia in a pot. I would be thrilled to get some Tussock Moth cats on it. I love those fuzzy little cats. It's been far too long since I last saw one. I'm sure the vine I grew was Cynanchum laeve. It's called honey vine, and has heart shaped leaves. Oh 1 other thing there is another species of Cynanchum called Cynanchum louiseae. Also known as black swallow wort. It's not native, and is now taking over the northeast. It attracts female Monarchs to lay their eggs on it, but when the cats hatch, they start eating it and die. Hopefully, if I do manage to grow a nice sized Tweedia vine, it will be interesting to see what kind of insect activity it gets. I read that Monarch cats will eat and grow on Cynanchum laeve, if that's what you have. You may still get some Monarchs on yours. The vine might offer a little better security for the cats, because of all the overlapping leaves. Like I said, I couldn't even get the vine to grow, let alone get any cats on it, but that was a long time ago. Maybe I'll try growing it again, I've learned a few tricks since then. https://stlwildones.org/monarchs-prefer-this-inconvenient

Energy? My hemoglobin is at 10, and I got a procrit shot yesterday. Sometimes I feel like the walking dead, but I still push myself to keep everything together. I don't think you should worry about the ladybugs. I'm pretty sure they're more interested in eating the aphids, and not the cats. I don't like assasin bugs. I had one of those once, and it killed a lot of my Monarch cats. I would find the dead cats drained of body fluid, and then I caught the bug in the act of sucking a Monarch cat dry. It kept hiding from me when I tried to kill it, like it was intelligent. Very creepy!!! There are different types of assasin bugs. If you can take a picture of it, we could find out what kind it is, and if it's safe to have around the cats or not. I'm having a hard time keeping the milkweeds fresh too. I try to leave the cats on the living plants until the 5th instar, and then put them in the cages. My tropical milkweeds have been eaten down to almost nothing. And the common milkweeds also. If the fertilizer doesn't do the trick, and make your incarnatas flower, you could try stressing your plants into flowering. Stressing the plant, makes it feel threatened, so they go into flowering mode to make seed to continue the species. You can do that by holding back the watering. Not for too long. You just want to stress them, not kill them. I'm curious about your whorled milkweed seeds. Do you think they sent you the wrong seeds? Have you ever seen it growing in the wild near you? It grows in the wild near me, so I'm able to collect seeds. I think my Swallowtail is about to emerge. I figured out the date as today. Now I've lost track of all the other Monarch crysalises. Next year I'll keep better records. Have you ever grown porterweed for the butterflies and hummers? I've started seeing some yellow aphids. They're only on the top young, tender leaves. I smoosh them with my thumb. I'll have to watch closely and make sure they don't get out of control. I hate them, and their nasty, sticky messes.

Javi, it's ok to kill stink bugs, if you could ever get a hold of them. If you'd seen what they did to my Monarch cats, you'd want to kill them too. They aren't endangered, Monarchs are. Anything we can naturally, organically do to reduce the Monarch predator population, we should be doing it. Female stink bugs can lay 100 eggs at a time. Do you think a pet gilla monster would take care of your lizard problem???

Jay, not sure what mine is. Found a picture of the flower from last years. It’s not flowering yet.

I've seen pictures of the vine's flowers, and the coloring seems to match, but the petals look different. I can't tell you much more. I'm not very familiar with the genus. You could try posting that pic on name that plant, and see what they come up with.

You wanna talk creepy, Jay? Gila monsters come to mind.

Trying a new technique with the milkweed cuttings (leaving cats on the living plants in the yard isn't an option, as they don't make it past the second instar): this morning, I took cuttings only of main, beefy stalks. I figure these stalks are geared for delivering water to the rest of the plant/branches/leaves. So far, I have four stalks sitting in water, and the leaves are fully hydrated. I'll give it another couple of hours to see if they start wilting or remain firm.

Someone from Oregon sent me tropical MW seeds I requested, and she sent an additional packet labelled verticillata. I'm afraid I've already scattered them all into the yard over the past couple of years, so I don't have any pics to show you. Regarding whether I've seen them grown around here, I wouldn't recognize a verticillata if it bit me on the nose. :)

I've seen a number of these assassin bugs (zelus longipes, I believe) lurking on the MW bushes, and I'm sure they're eating up whatever baby cats they can find.

These two guys made their appearance this morning -- milkweed bugs that are herbivorous and munch seeds/seed pods, so I don't think they pose any harm to the cats (hopefully):

Remember those two very small MW plants that I posted last Monday, 3:06 p.m.? One of them is ready to bloom!

This is the one you thought was a tuberosa, so perhaps the flower will confirm it. I may go out and throw netting over it so a critter doesn't come by and nibble off the buds! I've waited sooooo long for this to flower. (Squishing aphids on new, tender growth has become part of my morning ritual. I'm certain I don't get them all, so the ladybugs will still be able to feast.)