Hi Granny,
 
We happily picked our first bouquet last Tuesday, stopping by to say hi on our way.  The flowers were beautiful in many vases at our end-of-year Girl Scout ceremony.  When putting the flowers in the vases, we discovered a jumpy tiny (smaller than a half-inch) praying mantis.  We placed it out in the border of our woods by some flowering weeds.  Low and behold about 4 days later we found another one among the flowers in the vase.  This one was bigger, at least an inch.  My husband did an internet search, discovered that they molt, and actually found the shed exoskeleton on the flowers!  We were going to transport him back to the garden, but he (or she!) jumped onto the counter, and we put it out in the yard again.  I'm guessing they might have come from the white flowers, lots of tiny buds together, on a large plant near the sidewalk between the elementary and primary (sorry, I don't know the name of it).  They were really awesome tiny critters, perfectly formed, and looked like they were looking at us when we were talking, moving their heads like they were trying to get a better look!  Anyway, in my 40 years I have seen the adults, but never these tiny babies.  At a field trip to Green Acres, their egg cases were pointed out to us, attached to the taller grasses.  We were all excited to see them, and learned a lot about them in our search on the computer.  Apparently if they're large enough they can eat hummingbirds!  Thought you might want to know about our discovery.  Thanks for making the gardens!
 
Margie, Doug, Brennah, Audrey, and Kaden Kentz

*Occasionally we may have a "Please do not pick." sign on a plant where we plan to collect seeds or a specimen plant where we only have one or two.