Good for you Miss Sherry-I have the same out look you do-I'll plant them and someday they will come. I'm getting some FN from Edith on Wednesday-I ordered quite a few plants to start my collection. Wish me luck too!

Aggie

OMG - I have FN everywhere - it keeps popping up from seed dispersed by my single plant last year. I found another plant with the leaf tips sewn together, so I just pulled up the entire plant (it was only about 7" tall) and I've been pushing the roots through the top half of a soda bottle, covering a small container with water, and pushing the lid part through the plastic so it sits in the water. Works great. Plus, I can replant the FN when the RAs are done with it.

I have SOOOOOO many GFs it's not funny. Everytime I go out to pick a stem of passion vine for them to eat, I find more cats, more eggs hatching (they look like drops of concentrated orange juice), and putting them in the hamper. I think some of them bore into the flower heads (spent or new) and hide there - very good defense mechanism for avoiding predators!

Congrats on your diverse RA population, MissSherry!

Susan

Here's wishing you good luck, Aggie!
I know what you mean about false nettle coming up everywhere, Susan - mine has got those strange flowers on it now, so it'll undoubtedly spread some more.
Congrats on all your GFs! The scene you describe is like what I usually experience. Maybe I'll get there eventually, but right now I'm just raising a small batch in a cage, and I only see 2 GFs in my garden - 1 male and 1 female. But then that's all it takes, right? :)
MissSherry

This evening when I was walking down the road to get leaves from the pecan tree I'm using to feed my hickory horned devil, a red admiral flew practically right in my face, then flew all around me. I then saw a RA perched on some devil's walking stick/aralia spinosa and another one perched on the road. I don't know which one was so bold, maybe it was both of them. I got a picture of the one on the DWS, who I think must be the female, because she was considerably bigger than the road dude - maybe she's the one who laid the eggs -
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MissSherry

That is a great picture, MissSherry! I bought some false nettle so I am hoping it grows quickly and I get some eggs too. Congratulations on finally getting eggs.

Susan, if only I could have your problem. Well, I guess it wouldnt be so good if you only have limited food and keep finding little ones!

Gwynne, I will be happy to send you seed when mine flower and produce some. Just toss it outside on the ground where you want it to grow and it will come up. Mine just self-seeded itself and now I have a fairly good sized patch of it. I put some more in the backyard in a tub I had sunk in the ground and it is doing wonderfully as well.

I brought in 3 more GF cats today nibbling on the flowers - they dearly love the flower buds, don't they MissSherry? I don't know how many I have, but it's a lot of them. I think Mama GF keeps coming back and laying more eggs.

I am trying to check the FN in the a.m. and the p.m. because I think the spiders are getting a lot of the babies right now. I finally had to open the very top leaves just to make sure there was a caterpillar in there (there were 2) and them "smoosh" the tips of the leaf back together again. I've brought in some that I suppose the spider has already snatched up, but I didn't want to open the leaves. Now, I am checking them, cuz I don't want to be bringing in a spider!

Susan

Susan, thank you for your offer of seeds. I only have flower pots to toss them into, so I dont know if that will work out for me. Also, since I am planting so late in the year, does that mean I will not be able to harvest my own seeds? I take it FN does come back under the correct conditions?

I wish you could send me some GFs! Here I have all this passionvine and only four GFs to eat it! I guess you really can have too much of a host plant!

These threads are making me feel determined to add FN to my gardens. I read they like shade, and I have limited shady areas, unless I put them in between some of the taller plants. I haven't seen an adult RA yet this year. MissSherry, your photos is beautiful; he looks so imperious!

GFs are soo beautiful too--you all are so lucky to get them!

Gwynne, pots will work just fine for FN. I have some seeds that came up in a pot I left outside over winter, too. I'll send you some this fall and you can just throw them in a pot of dirt on your balcony and they'll come up next year. They do come up late, so don't sit waiting breathlessly. They take their own good time!

BG - in your area in New Hampshire, full sun should work great for them. In our southern heat, they need some shade. A lot of things that you can grow in full sun take shade where we live because the sun is just too intense for them.

Will save seed for you, too, if you'd like. FN is a native plant to most all the U.S.

Susan

I think false nettle is an attractive plant - if I lived in a regular suburban neighborhood, I think I'd make a bed in my front yard for it, and it'd look good!
I released my first Ohio RA this morning, one that Cecropia/Dan sent me as an egg - ever noticed how much time they spend upside down?
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MissSherry

I just released one this morning too-I found another one on a nature walk with my daughter and he hatched this morning-it's so funny to hear the Nextel go off and then my daughter shouts(at the top of her lungs-while I'm at work) Mom-the Red Admiral hatched, it hatched!! She is too funny..Um, why do they sit like that? I noticed that too.

Aggie

Susan--I would looove some FN and that Senna you mentioned somewhere else. You are too nice!

MissSherry--Beautiful pic again of the RA--I didn't know that they like to hang upside down!

I brought in quite a few of the little RA cats in their leaf nests. Here's a picture of a red admiral leaf nest -
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I'm anxious to see what this crop of cats will look like! They're not kidding when they say they're variable - here's a picture of a RA cat that came from Edith in Florida and an Ohio cat from Dan - the Florida cat has yellow on it, and the Ohio cat is banded, much like an American lady -

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MissSherry

I agree with you, MissSherry, that FN is an attractive plant. It makes a very nice patch of green foliage, leaves with serrated edges and all. I think the reason that I have cats this year is because the females like to lay their eggs on the smaller, more tender plants, right at the very top. Then the cats slowly move down the plant to less and less tender foliage as they get big enough to consume those leaves.

My GFs are already eclosing. I released 3 yesterday. Mama GF has been back every single darned day to lay more eggs. But, it will be nice when I have lots of GFs flying around the garden.

Susan

Yes it will Susan! Having orange flittering all around you is wonderful! I keep finding more and more mid-instar cats that have managed to hide from me - I brought in 4 more yesterday.
You've described the way Mama butterflies lay their eggs and caterpillars eat as they grow just perfectly!
MissSherry