"About aggressiveness and ratty looking, " Gotcha.
About 1/2 of my garden is I don't care what it looks like.
Digging up - big problem for me this year. Mainly cause of the lack of rain (none for a month) and my watering plants. Squirrels, chipmunks, moles, voles, etc will dig in the mpoist soil seeking both moisture and goodies to eat. I have had several scores of plants dug up exposing much of the root system. Pain.
Many of the moth cats that become hummingbird moths will eat a lot of things. This summer I found them on tomatos (of course), contorted filbert and Datura. But I never saw the moths.
Last summer, I saw them practically every day.
Do you have adequate hedges. etc for the Quail? In many cases habitat is of as much importance or more than food per se.
Cool on the Monarchs. It was a banner year for me too.
