Leslie, those red spotted purples are something else, aren't they? I had one hanging out on my front hedge earlier this summer and I took a bunch of pictures of it. Lisa Here is a link that might be useful: Lisa's Butterflies

You can grow them by seed or by cuttings but, I prefer going thru the driver thru and getting them faster and bigger. You may have to investigate online who sells them. It could be a company or a plant-group-society raising funds. Companies might have a website. The organizations would probably do this in Spring if they follow the models over here. There are forums for that kind of thing in GW too. The important things for you would be to match the hydrangeas to the climate in your area. Start with a few paniculatas which are hardy, usually to zone 3. Some names that you may see here are Kyushu, Limelight, Little Lime, Pink Diamond, PeeWee and Quick Fire (and Little QUick Fire, both of which bloom amongst the earliest of paniculatas), Hydrangea arborescens is usually hardy to Zone 4. Some examples are Annabelle, which plops when the blooms get large or large-wet, so also consider its "cousins" Incrediball, etc Hydrangea macrophylla may not do well in regions below Zone 6 because the stems will not survive the winter. There are two options in that case. Winter protect the plants or get rebloomers like those in the Endless Summer Series, Let's Dance Series, Forever and Ever Series, etc. These bloom on old and new wood; of course, the old wood will die during winter but the new shoots will produce flowers too, albeit later than if the bloom was from old wood. Another option: start by asking your mother which ones in her collection will do well in your area. And which ones she remembers your wife liked the most in her visit. Then see if she will mail you cuttings overnight at your expense.

A skipper, perhaps? So Floridata.com has a butterfly gallery, but I cannot seem to link the URL here; it won't work. I used their search window to get to it, using keywords 'butterfly gallery'. Putting the link here in case it works for someone else: https://floridata.com/tracks/butterflies/butterflies.html

Thanks Martha. I'm so frustrated with cyber space! haha Under my profile, it asked if I wanted to edit my name, so I changed it to catherinet (5N), but it kept saying various things like "someone else has that, try another one". then I would try to change my password because it said that was wrong, so I tried to change that and it said someone else already had that. I finally gave up. It took away all my topic "follow"s, so I had to find them again. I'm so frustrated. Maybe I'll try another day....but I've had enough computer frustration for 1 day. haha Maybe if the user "four" hadn't said something, it all would have been okay, but I thought something was wrong. Oh well. I'll try again later. Thanks for your input Martha!