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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 24, 2021 1:27:50 GMT -6
I did move a few of the larger/bushier milkweed plants, down to where those caterpillar's are, pushing the bushier plants where their branches/leaves are in contact with the smaller plants containing the larva. That seems to help - one caterpillar has already began feeding from the bushier plant. This might work. However, every day I've been removing fresh eggs, from the weakest plants, to protect the small plants and to keep butterfly larva from hatching, only to starve, before they can mature.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 27, 2021 9:46:36 GMT -6
Here's a pic of an adult male, queen butterfly, raised on my first milkweed garden, here in Tucson. The dark spots, near the base of each wing, are the giveaways to ID a male.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 29, 2021 19:13:01 GMT -6
@tucson Grower, that story about a Monarch pupating in your bedroom is amazing. We’ve never done “free-range” caterpillars in our house. (Froglets escaping an aquarium once took some catching, though.). Would you try to repost that photo of the Queen? I’d love to see it, but I’m having lots of trouble with photos, too, and I don’t know why. We had another butterfly eclosure a couple of weeks ago. There was one last chrysalis to go, but it had pupated much earlier. It may have been a non viable chrysalis, but since there was a chance that it was overwintering, I moved its screen outside and attached it to the underside of our passionflower trellis to give it more time. When this butterfly flew, it landed on the rose bushes outside our dining room window. We got to watch it resting there in the sunshine as we ate our lunch.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 3, 2021 19:26:04 GMT -6
I zoomed in on the photo of that butterfly resting on the rose. What vibrant colors! Thanks, for posting that.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 28, 2022 12:28:50 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum,
To my surprise today, while potting up tomatoes, I saw a black swallowtail butterfly. It landed somewhere in my backyard, so I went over to see if I might find it to get a closer look. I never did find it, but as I was walking along looking at the ground, a yellow swallowtail butterfly flew right in front of my face!
Later in the year that might not be quite so exciting, but we've been having such hard freezes lately that anything alive is a wonder right now.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 28, 2022 17:24:25 GMT -6
When the sun returns and butterflies start flying after a cold spell, it always seems to me to be an exciting event. They’re such amazing creatures. I was pretty excited the other day that our Texas Mountain Laurels have started blooming. (They didn’t bloom at all last year after the hard freeze in February, and I missed them.). They have a pretty strong fragrance (like grape Kool-aid actually, though they are quite poisonous, I think), and my little ones and I were smelling them when they were starting to bloom. As we were standing there a Pipevine swallowtail started flying around. That was a great sight.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 31, 2022 15:29:30 GMT -6
I took a picture of one of my Texas Mountain Laurels the other day. We have a little grove of them sort of between my garden and my kids’ trampoline. There are a number of small trees and bushes (the plant is extremely slow growing, I understand) in that area. It’s really lovely this time of year. I loved lilacs growing up in Virginia, and I miss seeing them down here. I figure this is sort of the Texas version. @tucson Grower, I thought of you yesterday when I saw a queen butterfly in this area.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 31, 2022 19:49:08 GMT -6
That is a beautiful plant.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 26, 2022 19:08:08 GMT -6
I had a big surprise this morning in my garden. I have a tiny and not particular promising planting of Glass Gem Corn. It was supposed to be larger, but I had germination troubles. The corn that did come up and survive is small and thin and already tasseling. I’ve been hunting for signs of ears (there are signs on one plant). As I was looking this morning, I found a Monarch chrysalis under one of the leaves. I wasn’t sure what to do as I didn’t want to hurt it when watering the garden (I use a watering wand and mostly water the soil, but I do have to move it from place to place between plants). I finally decided that I’d set up our empty aquarium and bring it inside. I clipped the whole corn leaf so that I could hang that at the top of the aquarium under the screen and keep the chrysalis in its same position. I don’t know when it appeared. I’m assuming quite recently as I look at my plants fairly closely. The mysterious thing is that while we have milkweed on the property, there’s not any right next to the garden that I know of. Caterpillars do crawl off their host plants looking for a good place to pupate, but this seems a far distance from the possible milkweed in this section of the property.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 26, 2022 19:14:15 GMT -6
That's awesome! I've never seen one of those before.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 26, 2022 20:05:15 GMT -6
That's a new on me too, have never noticed one of those before.
The corn is nice and green...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Sept 2, 2022 11:28:27 GMT -6
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Post by woodeye on Sept 2, 2022 14:50:29 GMT -6
That's really neat, chrysanthemum. You are having some cool adventures today, first it was botany, and now entomology. The two go hand in hand though, so a nice combo...
I hope I was right about the terminology. I used to tell my sister-in-law to "correct me if I'm wrong". Eventually I quit saying that to her because she'd correct me when I was right too...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 2, 2022 22:25:18 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum,
You must be a 'Butterfly Whisperer' I've never found a single butterfly cocoon in my entire life. In fact, I've only found one cocoon, period, and it was just a moth. It's amazing how many of those things you come up with. You really do have a gift!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Sept 3, 2022 16:52:53 GMT -6
I’ve never thought of myself as a butterfly whisperer, but it is fun when they’re newly eclosed and will sit on your hand or crawl on your head. This one was able to fly just a bit, so she took off for a tree and rested there.
I’m still a bit perplexed as to how she ended up in my corn patch in the first place. There is milkweed in the part of the property that we call “The Northern Wasteland,” and that’s where the gardens are located, but it still would have been a hefty adventure for a little caterpillar to crawl that many feet.
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