Does any one have Butterfly weed ( any color) to exchange? I have Echinops/ Blue Globe Thistle, monarda (purple ), Siberian Lilly. Unamed day lillys. Let me know Thanks

Ralph, This is going to sound strange, but, the first chance you get, walk around the plants in the daylight, a little away from them too. Check the ground all around them and see if you can find any ant nests. I'll make you a bet, you will find ant nests, and if you do, go buy some Amdro ant killer and feed it to the ant hills or nests only. Wherever there are alot of alphids, there are ants behind in somewhere. LOL It will cut down your infestation considerably. Just go see outside, it works.

My eyes glaze over when I try to read how to get plants to grow from seed... I just don't have the patience or skill :( After several failed attempts to get orange butterfly weed to grow from a packet of seed, a neighbor gave me some of her seed pods. I stuffed the seeds under the mulch all over in the area I where I wanted it to grow, and finally got ONE plant to grow a couple of years ago! It's on a berm in the middle of our backyard lawn where we had 2 trees that died (only to replace them and have the replacements die). Rather than plant more trees there, I'm trying to turn the berm into a butterfly garden. Last year was the first year my little butterfly weed flowered, and this year it's back and the blooms are opening up now. I found babies in a few spots around the yard this spring, and successfully transplanted one and have a second transplant on life support-- the top died back but I keep watering the roots. I just found 4 more tiny baby butterfly weeds growing in a patch of ground cover near the parent plant, but fear they're too small to transplant at this point so I may need to wait until next spring. I want to add some milkweed to this area as soon as I find some. The swamp milkweed pictures are so pretty! Here's my only mature butterfly weed (surrounded by Mexican feather grass), and the bitty babies I'm hoping to transplant next spring...

Peren.all, LOVE that photo! I enjoy grasses and have a few Pennisetums in my bed and some Carex buchananii. I know when I first started gardening with perennials, I wanted to have a meadow effect at one point, but I really don’t have enough room to do that. I like the style of Piet Oudolf who designed the Lurie Garden in New York. A similar style. I think that’s Amsonia on the far left in your photo and I’ve stuck with the ‘Blue Ice’ because that variety you grow is a little too large for my bed. What is the low yellow grower in front of the Butterfly weed? Very nice composition. I think you have the balance between a ‘natural’ look and an organized bed, just right. That’s funny, I have a grouping of 3 Pennisetum with Gaura, Nepeta Walker’s Low and Perovskias in one corner of my full sun bed, with Cranesbill along the edge. [g]. I just don’t have the Butterfly Weed in that bed, because I have pinks and I don’t like them together. I have BW in another bed that I’m hoping to rearrange and add to in the fall. I love Agastaches, Salvias and Penstemons. I would love a whole bed of them, but I’ve tried a lot of them over the years and a lot of them are still not hardy here in z6b, and I have heavy soil. They grow for me, but not vigorously and I usually lose them over the winter. There are a few varieties that I’ve kept going. I do like ‘Caradonna’ and I plan on adding that for sure. My geraniums have been fried in the heat, as well as Heucheras. You’ve had higher temps in Canada then I have had here. I’m counting my lucky stars that so far the heat has been tolerable. A few bad days close to 100, but high 80s, low 90s most of the time. We’ve had relief often enough to get through it. Monday night we had about a 1/2 inch of rain in the night and it cooled down with lower humidity. It was a high of 78 on my back porch all of yesterday and later in the afternoon it dropped to 68. Wow. We had the house fan on last night. But, it is July, so I’m sure we still have plenty of heat to come. But I would have thought you would be cooler in Canada. Such strange weather.