Good luck. Be patient. You're going to need a LOT of patience altho' where you are maybe things grow faster than they do up here in the frozen north. My father planted blueberry bushes here when I was 12. I haven't been 12 in several decades. The bushes are taller than I am and produce lots and lots of blueberries every year with minimal care aside from being "fed" twice in the spring. They're definitely well worth the wait but you'll wait a very, very long time before harvesting berries from bushes grown from seed. Commercially grown bushes will bear fruit in the first or second season but don't expect to cook more than one blueberry pancake with what you get. The new BB bushes I planted between the mature ones my father planted have produced more berries than I would have expected--I'm guessing because the neighbor's honeybees have pollinated more of the flowers.

Deer pruning often results in a nice bushy plant. Except when they go after arborvitae, they turn those into lollipops, eating what they can reach and leaving the tops. Rhodies often sprout from what looks like totally bare brown wood. They're very good about sprouting from wherever you happen to want to cut them back to, like a boxwood, and unlike a lot of other woody plants. Around here people routinely take a too-tall monster rhodie and cut it down to the ground almost to rejuvenate it. They usually will resprout from the stump. A bit extreme but it should give you hope. Some species and varieties are naturally leggy, like our native rhodies here in the PNW are naturally leggy. Part of that is whether they're 1yr or 2 yr or 3 yr rhodies - how long they hold an individual leaf before dropping it. Each species and variety is either a 1 or 2 or 3 yr type. The wild rhodies I see growing in the mountains appear to be 2 yr rhodies which tends to leave them bare at the bases. Also they drop the bottom leaves if they're in dry or lean soil, only so much water and nutrients to go around so they sacrifice the oldest leaves. Cool and cloudy is just what your rhodie wants if it's trying to replace lost leaves with a immature root ball! I think it'll be fine. Deer don't normally eat rhodies but there's always a dumb one that doesn't know any better, or a starving one that's desperate. It won't necessarily be repeated.

Hi Linda, Thanks for the info. I was thinking it might be possible to bring them inside, and then if they eclose on a cold day, keep them inside until we maybe get a warm day to release them and they could head south? Yep, I know, crazy idea. But I'm sad that they may not make it. I found some more violets out front and in my neighbor's yard, so I may move them if they eat everything where they are. Who knows? Maybe it will stay warm long enough for them to make it to adulthood and fly to warmer climes. I am so excited about finding them. I am new to butterfly gardening. I inherited my garden from my home's previous owner, who I never met. We moved in in the fall of 2005, and the garden was tremendously overgrown as the house had been empty since June of that year. I weeded as best I could and cut everything back as appropriate, and my sister and mom helped me ID some plants. But it wasn't until the next year that I realized it must have been planned and planted as a bfly garden. So many great plants, both host and nectar! I've basically focused on maintenance and adding just a few things (like parsley for BST cats -- and I got some!). The garden has been a source of joy for me and my daughters. Actually, it was my 4-year-old who found the VF caterpillars. :-) "Mommy, come look, come look, a catahpillah!" The violets are actually growing in what is supposed to be a dry riverbed, so I'd been pulling them until I gave up a couple months ago. Now I'm smacking myself on the forehead for that! The dry bed is a nice feature but I'd rather have the cats. Now I know! Oh, I'm in Maryland, outside DC, zone 7 I think. I am scared to plant passionvine -- isn't it a pretty aggressive spreader? I don't have a good place to let something have free run. Amy

You may want to check out the Containers forum. I've attached an appropriate link for your review :-) Container soils have rather exacting requirements because of the closed environment they present. Most container soils have no soils in them at all and limit organic matter to the bare minimum or to very slow to decompose components, as garden soils, compost, or uncomposted plant parts provide too small a particle size or decompose too rapidly to provide the aeration and good drainage container growing requires. The soil mix I'd recommend is 5 parts bark fines, 1 part peat moss and 1 part perlite, pumice, turface or other high fired clay product. Or a Gardner & Bloome or Master Nurseries soil mix for acid lovers - everything you need is already there and in correct proportions. Add a slow release fertilizer like Osmocote according to directions when planting. You do not need to adjust for soil pH nor do you need to water with a dilute vinegar solution - this mix should test out at around 6.0, which is perfectly acceptable for blueberries. And our water supply is on the acidic side anyway. For ongoing fertilization, I'd go with MiracleGro for Acid Lovers (formerly Miracid) or other similar water soluble acidic fertilizer or any granulated fert formulated for Rhododendrons, Azaleas and Camellias. Here is a link that might be useful: growing blueberries in containers