Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Daily Butterfly Pix, #102, 3 by mellielong

mellielong wrote:
Thanks Amanda, I hate seeing him suffer but I can't put him down yet if there's a chance he might get better. Luckily, the other one seems to be just fine.

I just went out to spray the orchids and snapped a couple pics. First, is the ever-present Gulf Frit, this time on Tampa Verbena (an endangered plant here in Florida). Next is a Monarch cat I saw on one of my nearly empty milkweeds. I moved him to one with more leaves but it also had more caterpillars. Looks like I'm going to have to do another Monarch round up and take them to the museum. Then, I saw a male Monarch on the anise hyssop. I saw him on there yesterday, too. I hadn't seen anything using the anise hyssop yet so I'm glad it's attracting something. Next up is one of my Duskywing friends still checking out those coneflowers. Glad they like them; I like having the Duskywings around. They seem to show up earlier and stay later than any other butterfly in the yard. And finally, my Corky-Stemmed Passion Vine is chewed to pieces but I found the chrysalises left behind. I brought in about four Zebra Longwing chrysalises (as pictured) and one Gulf Frit chrysalis. The Gulf Frits wander more, I think, whereas the Zebras are lazy and stay on the plant, LOL!

By the way, my first Black ST gut purged but luckily he chose the corner so it's not too bad. When I went to pick fennel today there were all these little aphid looking things on one of the branches. Anyone have problems with them? I can't really spray it if I'm feeding it to caterpillars so I think I'm just going to have to plant more rue, which seems to have few pest problems.

Melanie