Gosh you really do have a lot of cats around there. It looks like you are going to have to start some more milkweed cause those poor plants just can't keep up.

Great find on the salvia and agastache.

I'm pretty sure that I have never seen this plant before, but I bought the seeds anyway. The pink color of the blooms caught my interest. I'm going to be starting the seeds indoors. Has anyone ever grown this before?

It grows wild around here and is quite common. I have it. It is a bit invasive once well established. It spreads by underground runners but it is not that hard to control. It smells great! It is the monarch's favorite milkweed in my area. It does not transplant well so plant the seedlings early so that they don't get root bound.

We have it here as ornamental, even established in some places in the wild. Local wild bees love it to bits.

EdieJ wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2020 10:43 pm Last summer, I saw this gorgeous black swallowtail fluttering around my parsley plants (grown in a big pot.) By the time I realized why she was there, she had pretty well covered the plants in eggs. I decided that it is easier to buy parsley than butterflies so I kept the parsley plants watered and watched out for anything that looked like a predator. About 3 days after the caterpillars hatched there was not a leaf to be seen, and the caterpillars moved on. But at least they got a good start on life - and with patience, my parsley plants re-leafed. Win-win!

I have that same situation every year too. The first time it happened they ate every plant in the window box down to the crowns. I started a new six pack of parsley but left the old ones out to see it they'd regenerate from the crowns. Yep! Amazing! So now, since they're slow getting started, I start an extra set of plants right around now and cover them when they go outside so that I'll have some parsley to use while the caterpillars are dining on the old batch.

The old batch will go to seed when it comes back so I let them dry out and collect them.

Yep, win-win!!

Common milkweed grows wild around here. I have it in my yard. The plants are kind of large, the flower clusters are large, round, and beautiful. Also, the smell is heavenly. They don't make a good cut flower, as they wilt too fast. If the plants get out of hand, weed-whacking the unwanted ones several times will keep them under control. I HIGHLY recommend this plant! It's one of the few that the Monarch butterfly larvae can feed on, therefore one of the few that Monarch butterflies can lay eggs on. And the seed pods are unusual and beautiful.

I didn't know I was going to have to do cold stratification...never have done this with any seed before. I found out when the seed packet told me to read the instructions for germination on the inside of the packet.

Try a few seeds without stratification, if you have enough. You're supposed to stratify swamp milkweed too, but I didn't know that the first time I sowed seeds and they came up nicely anyway.

Today I planted 2 six packs. I'll take one of the packs out of the refrig and germinate it in the usual manner that I do.

I didn't know this had a black calyx. Cool...

SpookyShoe wrote: ↑Sat Mar 07, 2020 7:21 pm Today I planted 2 six packs. I'll take one of the packs out of the refrig and germinate it in the usual manner that I do.

Okay, the six-pack of the common milkweed seeds was taken out of the refrigerator and was put on a heating pad. Two of the six cells have sprouted so far. This is much earlier than the 14 to 28 days dated on the packet. Success! Apparently the seeds do not require a cold stratification.. Probably my putting the six pack on the heating pad helped a lot.

After an absence all winter, the gulf fritillary butterflies are back. They've been here a few days and have been laying eggs on the passion vine, which is their host plant. The eggs are tiny and yellow.

Haven’t seen one myself but thrilled you have!

OK news to me ....... interesting brochure "Garden Butterflies Of The Georgia Basin" states: "Generally, the most important factor for butterfly abundance is the availability of specific food plants for the larvae" ......... in the past I have thought only about the nectar plants ........

Yes the host plants are the most important plants of all. The butterflies can fly to find food but the larvae need a food source to grow and they are plant specific in their food requirements.

It's why I own a spicebush.

This photo is from last year, but it shows the blooms on the passion vines that the gulf fritillaries lay their eggs on. The variety is passiflora "Inspiration."

Beautiful. Like a psychedelic jelly fish.

I have a plain purple passion that has empty pods, no real fruit, and doesn't host anything I have seen.

It chose the lip of an ugly black plastic nursery pot. Well, there's no accounting for taste. Anyway, it's making the first step by forming its body into a j shape.

Lots and lots of monarchs out last few days. I’ve got to get the zinnias started and get some milkweed.