Good grief! Here's the problem...ESPECIALLY if you live in Southern California... We have SO many micro-climates that if you were truly to find 'a' native, chances are, it is NOT going to grow in the supposed area you are told it is native to because of the micro-climate. Yes, this is true. I don't care what anyone tells you. I have had so many people contact me asking why their 'native' milkweed isn't growing. hmmm...shall I explain wby? Why does the A. curassavica grow better in certain areas whereas the A. fasicularis just sit there and, well, NOT? Could it be the soil? Water quantity? Moisture in the air? Fog layer? Altitude? Oh my, I could go on and on and on. Even within one city, there are a variety of micro-climates so that you can't state that a 'native' is going to definitely grow! Sheesh. If people are this fired up over a Milkweed plant, then perhaps they should just grow it in a pot. There are many plants that are NOT natives and there aren't any complaints that I hear of. In fact, lots of the fires that we've had lately? Native plants not having any water *but that's natural because they're not supposed to, right? so the area is dry and brittle and fire prone...and by leaving it 'back to the native' it opened up a huge fire zone So was it bad? Bad meaning bad having these native plants out there? No. Bad for fires though, yes. I'm not saying we shouldn't have native plants. Nah, not that at all. I just think that it's like politics and religion and not something people should argue over. Each person should be entitled to their own opinion. Plain and simple. I don't think this is something worth arguing over. Sherry

Hi, everyone. I myself just learned something new and wanted to share it. Please be careful planting different types of MW. I've been raising monarch cats for 5 years outside and never ran into this problem until now. I have 4 different types of MW and had eggs laid on all types. The problem is when one ran out. I moved those cats to a new MW plant and they refused to eat it. I moved them again and again with no success. I had to put them on the last of the MW they originally were on and have MW shipped to me over night from E**y. If anyone starts a monarch host garden. Stick with all the same MW or plant a huge amount of each one, because you may have the same problem I'm having now.

I have raised many whose wings turned out imperfect : some fully funtional, some barely functional, many just pitiful. Unrealistic to expect improvement after fifteen minutes. "swollen for so long" because the fluid did not go into wings. Defective butterfly.

We've had visits in the yard from occasional single and pairs for the past six weeks or so. Today we had the first mass visit (I've noticed) to the Gregg's mistflower (Conoclinium greggii): They love this plant, but its size does seem to make a difference. They didn't start grouping on this planting until it became quite large (~5ft x 5ft). Our two smaller plants get little attention from an occasional one or two at a time. Can anyone ID the smaller BF in the upper right corner?