I dont have alot,but if you want to trade a few plants:I would love orange and hot pink phlox,hibiscus rose mallow,ruby giant coneflower,varigated iis.I have hundreds of confrey plants,1 nothern lights grass,1purple feista grass,1purple stikes,hundreds columbines(mix),real pretty gallardia(brownish/yellow/redish).

Think it's very nice!

Hi, I have two questions. I have a packet of coneflower seeds that I haven't yet planted and it is now mid-July in eastern NY. Can I just put them in the soil outside or is there something else that I should do to get them to germinate? Also, I planted black-eyed susan seeds the weekend of July 4th in pretty good soil (mixed organic planting mix into top foot of my soil), in a location that gets sun all day. Have watered them every day and nothing has come up (2 weeks now). Any thoughts about why they may not be coming up? Thanks so much for any help.

Hi susanzone5(z5NY) thanks for your interesting comment, sad to hear you didn't get the monarch caterpillars this year. I read someone else's comment a while ago (I think it was on Houzz) that there are variations in the number of (a specific) species visiting a garden every year & this is not a concern but rather the way nature is. I haven't researched this so I'm not sure how valid it is. I didn't see monarchs for a few years & this year they are back. I saw one caterpillar, there may have been more I didn't see. I'm impressed you grew milkweed from seed to provide habitat - that is so important to the survival of monarchs. There's lots of other insects that need milkweed to survive, a whole community of different insects. So even if you didn't see monarchs this year you are doing something very positive for the environment. Another thought, do you have other native pants (indigenous to NY state) growing? I believe (& it's only my thought not researched or anything) that a wildflower environment is key to attracting monarchs, not just milkweed but other native plants. The reason I think this is, in my garden, over a few years (partly due to neglect on my part) the quantity & variety of native plants increased. This year there was a huge increase in insect population/diversity as a a result. Same for birds because they feed insects to their young. And this was the year the monarchs came back. Maybe there is an optimum number/diversity of wild flowers (indigenous plants) that creates this healthy ecosystem that attracts monarchs... Thanks again, let me know what you think. I'd be very interested to know if you get monarchs next year.