We northerners get to live vicariously through posts like this! That Abe Darby is stunning!!! I had an AD; it overwintered, but just barely and then over the next 2 years it petered out. Yours is lovely!! Carol

I had a similar experience last week. I saw the caterpillars, lots of them, but could never see a chrysalis. Last week, I saw one one my hollyhock, which was at least three feet from the butterfly bush, and wondered how it got there. I was watching it for a few days when we had quite a storm one night, and it was gone the next day - probably blown/washed away. I never got around to getting a pic. but it looked exactly like yours.

"It's easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission". How true! Well played sir. "last weeks sproutings of WR's will overtake them in a few days!". Even funnier knowing it's true! You know there are some plams I really like but there just ain't no use gowing them cuz they do nothing,heres my short list-S.minor,T.nanus,C.humilus( a larger plant would probably remove this from the list but cold hardiness has to be factored in)Needle palms,these are hard to establish this far north but this is one I will probably keep trying as it is extremely hardy!Blue needle palm,I would like to try this again as I think my small one may have come back,they are very sloooow and I will replace with S.louisiana-anyway you get the point,this logic reverses when you consider something like a Washy,they may not be super cold hardy but they repay you with incredible growth!

Bjorn, it sounds great! What do you mean when you say "rendered stone"? Does that mean it is concrete molded to look like stone? Our barn was white wood, then in the 60s it got clad in white steel. It is still there. The paint has eroded alot, but the steel really has protected the old barn. My DH grandfather and grandmother were from Sweden. His name was Nels. He was sort of an SOB I think, but he died in the 40's. He didn't have my DH son until he was in his early 40s then my late father in law didn't have my DH until he was in his mid 30s. The generations are really stretched out. We are in our mid 60s and we have a daughter that is 26 and a son that just turned 25. Though I have a son in his mid 40s from a previous life, lol. In Iowa there were a lot of German and Swedish immigrants settling here in the mid to late 1800s I'm really off topic now hahaha