What are you seeing in your gardens and afield? I am watching my beautiful Plumbago out my window with dainty Cassius blues laying their eggs and various swallowtails nectaring. My backyard is covered with Gulf Fritillaries flitting about.
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I am seeing fewer and fewer butterflies in my yard even though I have added more plantings this year. At this point, I am lucky to see a single sulphur flutter by. I live in the area of two golf clubs—Mission Valley and Calusa Lakes—and am wondering if their chemicals are affecting the butterfly population in my neighborhood. It’s sad to see my milkweeds in perfect condition—I much prefer the sight of leaves that have been mostly devoured by caterpillars!!
That is very strange Judith, although my milkweed looks pretty good right now too. I do have monarchs, tons of gulf fritillaries, black swallowtails, sulphurs, cassius blues and several others flying. I don’t have the chemicals though that might be affecting you though.
I stopped by Hibbs this morning and picked up a bag of Ladybugs. Just put some on my Milkweed and there is now an aphid smorgasbord going on out there.
On another note about Hibbs -they have some very big Giant Milkweed plants for $14.99.
please advise info on luncheon
Here it is December 11th and I found 6 really big polydamos swallowtail caterpillars on my pipevine this morning. I had stopped looking in October as there had never been any that late in the year before but today, there they were. Of course, I brought them in and put them into a container with pipe vine leaves and a few sticks in case they want to become a crysalis. Such fun. I love this
Don’t think butterfly season is over yet….many species are still flying given our divine weather…………..today (New Years) we spotted the following on a bike ride at Myakka River SP: ocola skipper, clouded skipper, dorantes skipper, zebra helaconian, gulf fritillary, fiery skippers (male and female), white peacocks, whirlabout, and queen. The 2 most prevalant species were peacocks and zebras. The most action was around our old friend Spanish Needles. The zebras were sighted on Clay Gulley and other shady areas where corkystem was present.
As I prep my garden in anticipation of the upcoming Member’s Garden Tour on April 25th, I’m being supervised by several monarchs enjoying the new milkweed plants, cloudless sulphurs on the senna, zebra longwings loving the new Betty Miles passionvine, a few skippers and ceraunus blues, and a brief appearance by a red admiral. So far, they’ve approved of the upgrades I’ve completed.
Sounds great Karen. We are looking forward to seeing your yard. I had a Red Admiral the other day too – they are so pretty. What is a Betty Miles passionvine?
The Betty Miles (Young) passionvine is a dark-green-leaved passionvine with large beautiful blue flowers that I purchased at Crowley Nursery. It was new to them, so they didn’t have any history to report. So far it’s VERY happy here and actually trying to take over the surrounding territory. This one will probably need a larger support (? arbor) soon. Haven’t found any caterpillars on it yet.