Congrats! It's great to watch the full cycle. My DH had never seen the cycle, and was especially thrilled to see the first chrysalis eclose.

I can't keep the monarchs off of the milkweed long enough for them to bloom. The "stubs" are just starting to come back now, I expect to see caterpillars any day, and not nearly enough leaves to feed them.

Apparently, I'm going to have the same issue with the passionflower. The 3 vines are about 8" long and I've seen at least 3 gulf frit cats munching away.

Good luck in your new endeavor,
Terri

Hi, I'm new. Just found this site to ask for insect ID. Anyway, I'm also new to growing anything and decided to have a flower garden because I like photography. (Also new at! ha) Anyway, I was told that some of the flowers would attract humming birds and butterflies so stay tuned to my photobucket once they bloom! ha

http://photobucket.com/GDane123

Jonnys, welcome to the world of butterfly gardening! It is so satisfying to me to see them in the garden every day (along with the many birds who come to my feeders). Because so many of the caterpillars get preyed on by wasps and other critters in my garden, I usually end up raising a few batches of monarchs and swallowtails each season. Two summers ago, I raised and released 75 monarchs, 35 gulf fritallaries, 6 or 7 pipevine swallowtails, a wonderful fuzzy tiger moth, and a few other sorted things.

It is easy to do if you decide you want to give them a hand. I'll be glad to share some ideas that have worked for me, if you are interested.

In the meantime, enjoy them and photograph as many as you can. (Good luck with that, as most of them refuse to sit still long enough for me to get good pictures, especially the sulphurs.)

Here is photos of some eastern black swallowtails I raised last year.

Marcia

Hi
I have a similar experience as Terri. Have so many caterpillars the plants have no time to recover. I thought planting more would help but got more caterpillars lol Would other species of milkweed such as the "giant": work better or would I just get even more caterpillars?? Also what is the solution to assassin bugs??
Have had them wipe out whole crops . gary

Mostly I let nature take it's course. But I have the yellow milkweed and it reseeds like crazy, so I just keep tucking new plants in any place I find space. I have the red, but it doesn't seem to reseed as much for me. I have the giant milkweed and while a strange and beautiful plant I don't see the butterflies around it much. They do love the dutchman's pipe vine and the spinach tree. :o)

If by the giant milkweed you mean the one that gets the big sagey green leaves... I bought two of them (at $20 each mind you) and they were decimated down to 6" twigs very quickly. It's taken 4-6 weeks to have a leaf start to show on them. I almost got to see it bloom :-)

My current thought/attempt is to grow plants in my pool cage area to large size, then throw them to the wolves while I start new ones. I don't want to make any more emergency trips to the nursery to buy plants for starving caterpillars.

Good idea, Ladywingr. Plus, those emergency trips can be costly...I once raced to Home Depot for more milkweed when mine got stripped, only to have every single caterpilar that moved over to the new plants drop dead in minutes. If you aren't careful where you get the plants, they may have been treated with systemic pesticides. If milkweed looks full and lush, it probably has. I now buy mine at Lukas, where I know it is organic. And it is already nibbled, and often has eggs on it.

If you do buy milkweed (or other cat food) from places where you can't confirm that it hasn't been treated with pesticides, the man at Lukas told me keep it some place where the butterflies can't reach it for a few weeks to give it time to "clear" up. He said 2 to 4 weeks should get all the pesticide out of the plant's system.

Marcia

Thank you all for posting! I love to hear others experiences on things that interest us all.

Sure Marcia, I would love to hear some tips that you can give. I spent some time over on the butterfly garden forum, and have seen some setups people have, with netting and all. I might not get that far this season, though there is always another!

I started the garden off by making a trip to biosphere where I got some buddleia, more salvias, verbena, and african blue basil. I got a great sheet from the man there which lists all the nectar and larval food sources. Has anyone had good experience with Rue, and where might I find it?

Also, if theres anyone else in orlando watching the butterflies, please tell this newbie which ones I should be watching out for, and planting for!

I grew rue from seed and had beautiful plants but never did a caterpillar eat any of it.

Jonnys, you can be as elaborate or as simple as you want with your caterpillar set ups. They don't care. I use plastic shoebox sized containers with perforated lids that I got at a craft store. Cheap. I line the bottom with paper towels which I change daily, as the frasse (fancy word for caterpillar poop) is nasty and can get moldy. Often when the caterpillars are large, I just lay fresh cuttings of the host plant (usually milkweed, as monarchs seem to be the ones I find the most of) right on the bottom of the container. They eat it before it can wilt.

If the cats are smaller, I sometimes use small containers of water to keep the cuttings fresh until they have finished eating them. For me, an easy way to do that is to take a very small sized tupperware bowl & cut a hole in the lid for the milkweed stems. It's flat bottomed, wo the water doesn't spill, and the lid keeps the droppings out.

Basically, if you keep the food coming, they will grow very fast and finally make a chrysalis on the underside of the plastic lid. Once they have done that, watch closely so you won't miss them eclosing. You don't want them to bang around in there after their wings have dried, or they can get injured.

Here are photos where you can sort of see the container I use most often. These are the same two butterflies I posted earlier, but right before I released them.

Male eastern black swallowtail:

Female eastern black swallowtail:

If you want a couple of good books with Florida butterfly information, I highly recommend Florida Butterfly Gardening by Marc C. Minno & Maria Minno, and Butterflies Of Florida Field Guide by Jaret C. Daniels. Both are great for IDing butterflies and for finding out more on their host plants.

And don't forget, you need to plant both nectar plants and host plants in your butterfly garden. Expect the host plants to get eaten down at various points of the year, and be sure not to use any pesticides, systemic or otherwise, on any of the plants in that part of your garden. (Really, better not to use them anywhere in your yard, as you don't know where they might flit to.)

Be on the lookout for monarchs, queens, various sulphurs, various swallowtails (particularly giants, tigers, eastern blacks, palomedes and pipevines), various skippers (especially long-tailed and silver-spots), zebra longwings (our state butterfly), and gulf fritallaries. I would say these have been the most common garden varieties I've seen at any of my houses over the years.

Hope this is of some help to you. Please feel free to ask any questions you like.

Marcia

Thank you Marcia for lots of good information! After reading how you do it, it does seem so simple. My first question is how do you keep enough for the cats to munch on? If they eat all my milkweeds to the stems will they die if they cant continue to eat?

So far in the yard I have spotted monarchs and swallowtails, so Im going to continue to plant for these species, though I hope to see the others that you have mentioned as well.

Today I inspected the milkweeds and have already found a few eggs, or what I think to be eggs. Im already excited!

Thanks again Marcia, Jon

I'm glad you found some of it useful, Jonnys. It really doesn't have to be hard. I bought one of the mesh/net cages they had at Lukas one year, but I actually prefer the plastic boxes. Easier to clean, easier to see into. The only benefit I could see to the mesh is that it would be easier on the eclosed butterflies if they hatch out while you are away. Less chance of injury. But I'm at home during the day and check on them frequently when I know they are due to eclose.

Sadly, they WILL die if they run out of food. You have to be prepared to grow a lot, and don't bring in more than you can feed. In my opinion, it is better to let the cats take their chances outside, maybe becoming food for lizards, wasps or other predators, than to let them die in a cage. So I try to be sure I have enough food for the ones I'm trying to raise. I usually only raise 8 or 10 cats at once. I wait until they have hatched outside, then pick the stems that have babies on them, limiting the number to what I think I can feed. At my house, those left outside get eaten fairly quickly, so they don't usually decimate my yard plants.

However, if you find you have a whole bunch you want to save, you will need to make a run to Lukas (or somewhere you can trust the safety of the plants) for more milkweed. Or the appropriate food source. Caterpillars are ravenous eaters, for sure, so it's better to have plenty planted or on hand in pots.

When I found the swallowtails on my fennel, they were more than half grown, and I only found about 4 big cats, so I had plenty of fennel for them. But the monarchs are so prolific, it takes a nice stand of milkweed to keep them fed. The good thing is, the milkweed comes back fast.

Another thing...when the cats are tiny, they need the tender leaves, but as they get bigger, they will eat stems and all, so that is helpful if you are running low on leafage.

We all know the story of caterpillars turning into butterflies, but there is something truly magical about watching it happen before your eyes. For me, it was watching the fat caterpillar hang himself from the lid (it's called "J-ing up") and suddenly split right open and there is the brilliant green chrysalis. They don't weave a pupa around themselves like moths do...their skin just splits and there's this green jewel hanging there. Amazing!

And you will know that eclosing is getting near when the green color disappears and you can see the striped monarch inside.

Of course, this is different for each species. The process is the same, but everything else looks different.

Good luck with your venture. I think you might find it as addictive as any other form of gardening. And kids are totally fascinated by the process, too. My 4-year old granddaughter thinks it's the neatest thing, ever. She's right.

Marcia