I have only been raising butterflies for a couple of years but will try to help. Have you tried the Q&A forum for any of your answers? It is a great resource for commonly asked questions. As for Michigan, I'm not sure but 1. There is no cut off date here for finding Monarch cats. The first hard freeze will determine that. I had M.Cats until almost Christmas this past year. 2. My milkweed grows quite fast and can come up from nothing and feed my cats in a single season. Mine here (southern Louisiana) usually does not freeze back. Yours will but will come right back up after spring has arrived. I have also cut pieces of the stem and put in water. Some make roots and are easily transplanted into the garden the same season. Might want to put a bit of fertilizer on it to help it along. Seeds, on the other hand, need to be outside on the ground over the winter and will come up the next spring. 3. Too late to plant this year (as it has to overwinter outside) but can be put out for next year. 4. a. BST lay eggs on the top of the plant. As we do not have much queen anns lace here, I use fennel and parsley. On the parsley they are quite visible but need to bring them in right away so that the wasp do not get them. b. I am not sure if they like younger or older, just be sure to plant their host plants as stated above. They will lay their eggs. c. Most of my eggs are laid out in the open or tops and sides as the butterfly can not get down into the thick plants. As the cats develope, they will go down into the plants to hide from the wasp. I find most of my BST cats in the A.M. Most of the Monarch cats in the a.m. and p.m. Wasp love them too. Bring them in as soon as you find them to protect them. 5. Look on the Q&A forum for a complete answer. 6. All of my CATS, monarch, bst, gst, move to the top of the cate to pupate. If you wish to move them to another receptical, rubberband a coffee filter over the top of the jar or container and you can just move the filter as they pupate on it. Just use a safety pin to attach to your netted cage. Raising BF's is ADDICTING. My grandchildren help me and we have a great time. I also have a BF garden at school where I work and I provide all of the PRE-K and K classes with as many CATS as they want to raise. I bring home the rest or raise them in my classroom. The kids really get into it and LEARN. Good luck and have fun raising your cats with the children and teaching them another great appreciation of nature. Leubafr (Mary)

Thanks for the remarks everyone. Carl, I have so many potted plants that I dont know where im going to put them all this winter,LOL.I hope that storm does'nt hit your area.It would be a shame to loose all those great plants.By the way I do sell plants. Alex, I'm sorry I havent had time to comment on your pics. lately.I've seen most of them,and from what I did see,it looked like you've added more plants to your collection.Everythig looked very happy and healthy.I think im getting close to having as many potted plants as you have. Greg, I forgot about the Butia pictures.I'll post some pics.in a few days.The bananas do help hide the trains,but it does'nt help hide the sound at all,LOL. Laura, Yea,I get some strange looks and cars going by very slowly.One of Douglasville's fine units(Drug Task Force) went by one day with his window down,driving very slowly and just stareing at those Hibiscus plants before they had started blooming.You know what he thought they were,LOL.If I was going to grow some of that stuff,it wouldent be in front of my house.Give me a break,that's our local police for you. Thanks again for all your compliments,it's been alot of work keeping everything looking good this year.We've not had any rain in two months now.Yesterday was our hottest day of the year,*98f.I think I need to learn the rain dance.I'll post more pics.soon. Randy

Bella rosa, if a jug seems to be drying out put several inches of warm water in a large container and set the jug or other seed container in the water and leave it for awhile so the mix can dampen. Try to do this anytime the containers are starting to dry out. One way to tell is if the container starts to feel lighter. I prefer Pro Mix but also use Miracle Grow without the moisture retaining crystals. Those crystals keep the mix too damp. Also if it rains a lot I will cover the containers with plastic sheeting so the mix doesn't get soaked. Works best when the mix is damp but not soaked. Failure to germinate can be caused by lots of variables. Mix is too dry or too wet. Tiny seeds covered with too much mix (best to surface sow and press seed to contact with mix), old seed, unripe seed, seed needing scarification, seed needing cold stratification, seed needing light to germinate so must not be covered with mix, seed needing dark to germinate so must be covered, seed needing two winters to germinate, seed germinating sporadically (columbine), seed needing a warm period then a cold period to germinate. I mostly surface sow and press the seed with the back of a plastic spoon to make contact with the mix. Bigger seeds generally get covered lightly with mix and pressed. When the weather gets in the mid 70s I remove the covers so the seed doesn't cook. They will need to be watched closely so the mix doesn't dry out. Moving to a shaded or partly shaded location helps. i am still ws annuals. Our last frost date is May 15 and I will direct sow some other annuals then. 2016 results: we have had a few days 20 degrees above normal, around 70F, still only have four containers (out of approximately 50) germinated and one of those is a container of delphiniums sowed 2014-2015 season. Thought I had some good germination in a couple of jugs then realized the seeds germinating were sunflower seeds. Some critter must have hidden some bird seed in my mix in the garage. So it goes!

Tom, I have to explain to everyone that it's not a weeping willow and that it is a Japanese Maple. I really like it a lot. Sorry to hear about your tree. Sometimes workers just don't care about other peoples property. I had the same thing happen to one of mine early on even after the owner of the company and I talked about it and to make sure to watch out for it. Not 30 minutes into the job they had broken it in half. Come time to pay the bill I handed him a check minus what I had paid for the tree. He didn't like it but he took it and left.