Hi, I would love to have whatever seeds you may have....this is my first year winter sowing and increasing my garden variety so I do not have anything to trade YET, lol.... but I hope this summer is my year to get into that.... I would gladly send whatever in the way of postage if you tell me the proper way to do it....thanks

Hi Sandy, I feel your pain, and I also can relate to the BB gun. I won't use anything that isn't organic or can hurt the butterflies/cats. But, I will use a BB gun. The crows would pull up the seedlings in our flower gardens and in our vegetable garden and THEN eat all of the sunflower seeds (that is... what seed the squirrels left) out of the bird feeders not leaving any for my little birds. So, I started using my son's BB gun to get rid of as many squirrels and crows as possible. The squirrels are easy to shoot, but you have to really sneak up on those crows! If you kill a crow, hang it up in the garden and the others won't come back. It will eventually disinegrate, but it really works while the dead one holds up. If you can't bring yourself to use the BB gun, just go shopping for new flowers while your husband does the necessary deed. My biggest problems in my part of Central Va are deer and rabbits. The deer try to eat all of the roses and tomatoes and the rabbits will eat every fresh thing you plant. They think you just added a new item to their 'Bunny Buffet'!! I just found out today that a mother bunny is raising her baby in the thickest planted part of my circle garden in the middle of my driveway. No wonder my newly rooted and planted butterfly bush in the circle garden got chewed off! Oh well.... I don't have the heart to leave a baby motherless or kill a baby. Glad I bought those stakes at Walmart today to put some fencing around my newest butterfly bush cuttings. OK... now that I'm finished fussing, my suggestions are: You could try using some bird netting over your seedlings to keep the birds off and maybe pin down some wire over newly planted areas to keep the squirrels out. Once the plants grow big enough, the squirrels and birds will usually leave them alone and you can stop using the netting and wire. Hope this helps. Good Luck! Betty P.S.- Miss Sherry, I envy your fencing. I dream of fencing!

jibd, Here's my experience with your listed plants: Coral Honeysuckle (Hummingbird Clearwing Moth)-I've never tried, but it's certainly worth a shot. New England Aster-I have these for the Pearl Crescents; very pretty and hope to find cats on them someday. Purple Coneflower-without a doubt one of the most favored plants in my garden for nectaring; don't know if I've ever had a Silvery Checkerspot cat on them or not. I definitely wouldn't be without this plant! Shasta Daisy-the butterflies never showed any interest in mine so I ripped them out. Butterfly Weed-the milkweed here that is laid on the least, but the butterflies love it for nectaring. Common Milkweed-I've never tried, didn't want it popping up all over the place. Swamp Milkweed-2nd most liked milkweed here by the Monarchs for laying eggs; first most is tropical milkweed (annual). 'Silver Brocade' Artemisia-don't know if this is the kind of artemisia that I have but I get American Lady cats on it. Sunflower-my first attempt at planting these was this year and they didn't come up, probably because of the drought. Parsley-Black Swallowtail cats lay eggs on it here. Dill-BST cats lay eggs on that here too. Native violets-I get lots of fresh-looking Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies here every year; I'm guessing that they come from all of the violets that we have here. Hollyhock-I tried this plant for 3 years, but every year the sawfly larvae would have the plants skeletonized before I even saw any Painted Lady butterflies here. I ended up ripping it out. Black-eyed Susans-I've had Silvery Checkerspot cats on mine but not this year. False Nettle-this is only the first year that mine has been growing and because of the drought my plants haven't done well (even with watering). I saw Red Admiral butterflies, but I can't blame them for not wanting to lay on the plants. Other host plants that I have and have had luck with are: Blue False Indigo (Baptisia australis)-I get Wild Indigo Duskywing and Clouded Sulphur cats on this. Wild Senna (Cassia hebecarpa)-I also get sulphur cats on these plants. Wild Indigo (Amorpha fruticosa)-I get Silver-spotted Skippers cats on my plants. I also have various typed of trees and bushes planted for host plants for the butterflies, but you didn't mention trees on your lists so I didn't know if you don't have the room for them...so I won't mention those. Best of luck with your garden! Cathy

I'm in Michigan.. I don't have a butterfly garden specifically- but I do have a lot of blooms around the property that the butterflies sure do seem to like, and I'm always planting in more flowers. Wild sweet peas and phlox, purple milkvetch, birdsfoot trifoil, and cinquifoils along with daisies and black eyed susans are all over my meadows. I keep trying to get other wildflowers to grow, but it's a slow and painful process. I also have violets, white bog violets, and jewelweed in the wetter and/or shadier areas. In more "garden" areas I have common and redring milkweed, nasturtiums, squashes (who knew butterflies love squash blossoms?) lots of herbs including several kinds of mint, a few kinds of lillies, and glads. We also have a lot of fruit trees and bushes... and a lot of "verge" areas. Wetland on meadow, meadow on woods, woods on sand flat, sand flat on ponds.. that sort of thing. All full of grasses, ferns, flowers I have no idea what the are but the butterflies seem to like them :) . I get black swallowtails, monarchs, Mitchells satyr, and lots of little butterflies that I don't know what they are. Startling orange and black ones, orange ones, yellow, white... I get a bunch of moths too, but the most notable (and easily ID) one is Lunar moths- those things are huge! The Mitchells Saytr is probably more common than monarchs around here, but black swallowtails are the most common I see.