Susan, I bet Ill have Painted Ladies and Checkered Skippers here fighting over the hollyhocks! Lol I was surprised that they got so tall and flower last year already and I have just planting them in the spring. They werent supposed to bloom until the year, according to the packet they came in. Ill also have Malva sylvestris growing here as soon as I get the seeds and get them started, so if Checkered Skippers eat that, then I guess theyll also be fighting with them over those. Maybe they can reach some agreement the one will eat the Hollyhocks and the other will eat the Mallow. Ha. I also have in my notes that Painted Ladies also like Cosmos, but I dont have information saying that the Checkered Skippers eat those, so Im not sure if they do or not. Thank you very much for listing all those plants that the Checkered Skipper eats; I hardly had any of them listed in my file. What what what??? I get Long-tailed Skippers up here??!! Youve gotta be kidding! I have to go look in the butterfliesandmoths website. Hold on. Hey, youre right! I just looked and the website indicates that there are areas in PA that get that one, and guess who lives in one of those areas! Oh my, and I even said to a friend of mine who lives in Florida that I was so envious that LTS are in Florida and they could very well show up in her garden, and I said that my butterfly book doesnt show them being in our state. Once again, theres a discrepancy between the Butterflies through Binoculars book and the butterfliesandmoths website. Well now, it looks like I just might have hit the jackpot here when I bought these magic beans. I really am wondering now if 8 seeds is enough! Im not even sure yet where Im going to put them. The fact is, I dont know right now where Im going to plant most of the plants that Ill have coming up within the next month or two. Ill figure it out somehow. I had 3 different kinds of skippers here last year, but I didnt have those two that were talking about. Wouldnt that be something if Id get five different kinds of skippers on the bean plants! Im adding all of those plants that you mentioned to my file on here so I wont have to keep going here and there to look things up. I appreciate your telling me about the habits of the Long-tailed Skippers too; I didnt really know anything about them other than when I saw their picture in my book, I thought that they were very beautiful. My good camera needs fixed and hard telling if/when thats going to happen, but if I do get Long-tailed Skippers here, Ill take a picture with our webcam; it just wont be nearly as good. I dont know how I managed to miss the Silvery Checkerspot when I was making up my list of PA butterflies. The book also says that we get those, and it looks like they arent scarce, so Id think that I have a pretty good chance of getting those here. Do you think it matters what type of Rudbeckia? Im not familiar with every type thats out there, but I do know R. hirta and R. fulgida. I had the hirta in my garden last year but it fell all over the place, which I didnt like, and I also didnt think the flower was nearly as pretty as the other kind. I emailed a gal who has a butterfly farm in PA (nowhere near here though) and she said that when she had Milberts Tortoiseshells, they would only eat the Stinging Nettle. I would be much more willing to buy false nettle than the stinging kind. I also think that Milberts Tortoiseshell is gorgeous. If I would ever get that plant, it would be something that I would put across the road in our weed patch. I just have to figure out a way to get rid of the weeds that are already over there. One thing though, Im not sure if the weeds Id be getting rid of would be good ones or bad ones. I suppose there are actually some weeds that butterflies dont eat. With my luck I probably have all of those and none of the others. Ha. On the other hand, maybe thats good if I decide to wipe out the whole weed patch and start from scratch. I know Questions Marks and Eastern Commas should be pretty common here, but I didnt see any last year. I know that they dont nectar on flowers. I had a dish of "slop" out for the non-nectaring butterflies but I dont think anyone even ate itif they did, they did it on the sly. I said that I had heard of serviceberry and hawthorn, but no, I dont have any. Are you saying that they are host plants of the Red Spotted Purples? Actually, arent those also bushes that get berries on that birds like? Oh, thanks for that link too! I didnt get a chance to look at it yet but will check it out. Cathy

Cathy, I haven't had a single GST cat but have seen quite a few adults nectaring on & off this year. All of my rue is dying again...it is in the shade but it's just too hot!!! I bought a Key Lime tree but no cats or eggs so far. I had a gentleman email me that he had seeds from Ruta odorata(dwarf rue) that would probably do better for my hot summers but I lost the email. He was from the arid part of California & also had GST host tree seeds that might work for my climate but again...I lost the email!!! ;o((( All the 5 hop ash trees I bought died!!! I'm not sure what happened to them...if they didn't like my slightly alkaline water or what! They all made it through the coldest winter in 20 years but started leafing out & shriveled & died this spring! Not sure what host plant the GSTs use that is native here but I usually have a lot of them flitting through my yard!!! I saw a male PVST today since April...must have been one of my eclosed babies from earlier in the spring...but not any females. Last year was a great TST year here, too...but I've only seen one tattered dark female several weeks ago & none since! I am finally getting lots of GFs...thought they were going to be scarce too but they are rebounding. I don't bring them in to raise...they seem to do great on their own here. I was really shocked to have these 10 monarch cats but I haven't had a single queen this year like last year. It should pick up in September...that is, IF WE GET ANY RAIN!!! The deer must be starving because they are eating plants they never touched before...all my daylilies are eaten to the ground along with my hollyhocks, violets, & even my partridge pea is gone!!! It has been the hottest summer since 1980 & possibly ever!!! SEVERE Drought conditions all over TEXAS & Oklahoma!!! I just came in from hand watering my tropical milkweed because it was all wilted from the heat!!! Checked our 10 day forcast & no rain & 104+ degree temps every day! YUK!!!

Look in the FAQ section, there is a list of host plants there. The FAQ section is located at the top of the forum and the host plant list is the last item listed. Giant Swallowtail - Citrus family, Rutaceae 1. Ptelea trifoliata - hop tree, wafer ash 2. Zanthoxylum clava-herculis - hercules club 3. Zanthoxylum fagara - wild lime 4. Zanthoxylum americanum - prickly ash 5. Citrus spp. - various species, including cultivated 6. Murraya paniculata - orange jasmine 7. Ruta graveolens - rue I think MissSherry also mentioned Satsuma, but I don't know which one she is using. I guess that goes into Citrus spp. Here is a link that might be useful: FAQ Hostplant list

I wish I had more time to stick around, but we wanted to get up to Cougar Mountan before it got to busy. Thanks to Jim for the wonderful bamboo, its beautiful *G* I sat the bag up to fill with water and saw a little 1/2" new culm coming up, so tomorrow I'll plant the two clumps. Thnks to Teresa for the ferns, and Shilpa for the day lillies. As my trees and bamboo grows up taller, and I get more shade I'll have lots of sun loving plants to trade as time goes by. Kendal *we made it up to the falls in good time, and got out just as a rush of people with their kids started up*