Well, I hate to say it, but the best two host plants for Giant Swallowtails are Wild Lime and Hercules Club trees. Now I live here in Florida and both are native trees. You should really try to find out if they grow in TX as well. If you can find one or both of them at a nursery, don't worry about them being "invasive". They dont' send out "rootlings". In Spring I find GST eggs and larvae all over the Wild Lime, however, as it heats up, I notice that they're favorite food IS the Hercules Club tree. This tree has miniscule white flowers on it and the leave have a weird lemonish smell when squished between your fingers. It can get as tall as 20-30 feet, but I just keep my trimmed to fence height. The butterflies also like my Mandarine orange tree, at times, but seriously, you must get Wild Lime (no fruit grows on it) and Hercules Club.

There are different ways to accomplish the same thing - keep the host plant food fresh for as long as it takes for the caterpillar/s to eat it and keep the predators off the caterpillars. I use Reptarian cages, which were originally made for reptiles, like iguanas, but it makes a great butterfly cage. I put foam rubber at the bottom of each cage, so that if a caterillar or chrysalis should fall, no damage will be done. I put paper towels over the foam rubber and change them as needed. I sometimes use water picks, which I either attach to the sides of the cage with florist's wire or sometimes I just stick them in the holes of my leftovers containers. Here are some giant swallowtail eggs - I brought them in as eggs, because even hatchlings of this type will get eaten by stink bugs and/or wasps, and the predators might find them before I do. The host plants - in this case, hops tree and rue - stay fresh in water for a long time - so, I went ahead and cut the third of the hops leaf off that they were on, put that in water picks, and then put the water picks in the leftovers container. The reason I did it this way, is that the water picks create a tight seal around the leaf, so that, should the hatchlings want to roam, they won't drown in the water. Also, by not attaching the water picks to the sides of the cage, if the hatchlings want to roam, they won't get lost in the cage or go through the mesh covering. GST cats rarely ever leave their leaf until they've gotten a little size on them, but it occasionally happens. Here it is - I found 7 more giant swallowtail eggs on hops tree yesterday, so I'll be bringing them in in a day or so. I waited until the gulf fritillary cats had hatched before bringing them in - for whatever reason, they're not as tasty to the predators, so you can afford to wait. I put the host plant stems directly in water through holes in the leftover containers - I make sure each hole is well sealed, if it isn't, I sometimes put folded over pieces of pipe stem cleaners in the holes to keep the cats from crawling in the water and drowning. Again, they don't usually get off the host plant, but they might. American ladies make a nest from cudweed flowers. The smaller cats are hidden in their little nests, but the bigger one - probably last instar - was out of the nest, eating. I found three more tiny hatchlings on one of my small willow trees - they are either red-spotted purples or viceroys. I finally got some viceroys this year for the first time in years, so I definitely want to raise those I find on willow myself. When you find one of these on wild black cherry, it's definitely a red-spotted purple, which are abundant here. Keeping willow leaves fresh is impossible in this heat. This spring, I kept them fresh on my front porch in these little plastic containers with venting on the top - now that the big heat is here, the willow leaves crisp up quickly, so I brought these into my air-conditioned house to raise them. I keep them on a baker's rack in my bathroom. I shut the vent in the bathroom and usually keep the door shut - the temps are around 78-80 degrees in there, cool enough for the willow leaves to stay edible - I hope this helps! Sherry

Hi ams - I know there is a lot of talk about pesticides on nursery plants, but we have two meyer lemons and one orange tree from Lowes that I have raised numerous cats on now with no trouble, and they are still producing a bunch of new growth. I think misssherry said that she thinks they might not use systemic pesticides on the trees since they are meant for human consumption - at most you might just have to hose it down to get off anything they sprayed on> Have you thought about looking there? I feel for you, best of luck!!

Honey tangerine seeds from the market should grow. They may be marked Murcott. Wild trifoliate is another but it is thorny.