Daily pictures #98

My little longtailed skipper cat has made himself a cocoon of bean leaves. does any one know how long it might take before he emerges? I have him outside on the porch to maintain the temp he was accustomed to but it will get to the 40's this weekend and Im wondering if I should bring him indoors before that happens.

Mellie a question for you on the giant milkweed. I found some for sale, a huge plant for 12 bucks at a local nursery. Do you have it in the ground? Wondering how well it does with our cold winters and if I should keep it in a pot and protect it when we dip to freezing or can I put it in the ground?
-Sherri

Sherri, I've still got mine in a pot because I haven't cleared out the place where I plan on planting it. When I volunteered at the museum, they had theirs in the ground and it came back in the spring. I would say you could put it in the ground but if you have an extra blanket you might want to cover it on those cold nights just in case.

Melanie

A few pictures from today...
1. Zebra Longwing
2. Long-Tailed Skipper
3. Zebra Longwing eggs and cats on passion vine
4. Monarch
5. Gulf Fritillary

Hey everybody - I've been covered up with work and school, but I caught a monarch yesterday hanging out all day. She particularly liked the West Texas Mist Flower that Russell sent last year.

Thanks Russell!!!

A. :)

I like having the Giant Milkweed around as an emergency stash when I run out of the other. It took a while, but the Monarchs did find it and use it eventually. It's a cool-looking plant, too. Love the flowers.

Melanie

Which Giant MW are you referring to Melanie?

This time of year all that is left for me are the tropicals - A. currassavica and the swan plant A. physocarpus.

My A. incarnata haven't done very well the past couple of years. I started A. exalta and A. purpuraescens last year from seed, but the bunnies ate all the seedling sprouts before they could re-establish. :/

I have several new varieties to try for next year. I did manage to keep a single common MW but it didn't like it when I started cutting foliage to feed the critters and it stopped growing. Trial and error.

Thanks.
A.

Here is my Giant Milkweed: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/67012/

Melanie

Wowee - that's a MW!

Don't suppose you have any seed or plantlets to go around?

That made me wonder about the Florida Paintbrush seed that I got last season.

Dale - if you're out there - let me/us know if you got it to grow and thrive. I got lots of sprouts but found it labor intensive in the garden and too many critters to prevent them from eating the soft grass-like foliage.

A.

I haven't seen the thing produce seeds although I'm sure that it must at some point. Next year I'm going to try rooting some cuttings to see if I can make more. It's a neat plant.

Melanie

Thanks, Lilylove. He has this leaf cocoon but I dont ;think he is pupating yet. He is still producing frass and making holes in leaves. I brought him inside day before yesterday because we have a series of nights that began last night of 40* . I'll post a photo of his "leaf" house in the AM.

Was just thinking this is not the best weather for migratory bugs. :/

Or stationary bugs!

Keep 'em covered up Mellie!

Amanda I had no luck with the paintbrush seeds. I was told by the Florida Native plant society that it would be very hard to get them to grow in a backyard landscape with irrigation, they like the pine flat lands and very sandy soil. However she also said they may take two seasons before the germinate...so don't give up yet. I put some right into the soil and some I tried in pots.

Mellie, yep that is the plant they have at the nursery. I'll go get one, they are really big for $12 bucks and some have flowers on them. I guess I'll keep it in a pot since I'm zone 9b.

Hmm. I had no problem with sprouts - I had huge success with germination.

But the transplant into the garden - not successful. I think I would have to keep them in pots to keep rabbits from eating them. O well.

Will try again next season. I do still have seed. Let me know if you want some more. :)

A.

I have lots of those paintbrush flowers but I don't think all of them are native. They come in different colors - one is reddish orange and the other is purple. I think the purple ones are not native. We consider them weeds down here but I have to say the Phaeon Crescents were all over them one year. A lot of the smaller butterflies use them.

In exciting news, my Zebra Longwing cats got a little bigger so I decided to bring them indoors. I'm just not happy unless I'm raising caterpillars, LOL! Plus, I was afraid the lizards might get them. Here they are munching on passion vine.

Melanie

I forgot to mention that Zebra cats start out orange and turn white later. It gets a little confusing because Gulf Frit cats are orange. The eggs look different though, so I knew who I had munching away. After a whole summer of seeing the butterfly, it's nice to have the caterpillars!

Melanie

Of COURSE they're weeds. But they're native wildflowers!!!!

Right now the thing that's blooming in my yard and drawing the neighbor's honey bee hives are the old white field aster WEEDS I allowed to grow in place. In fact, I brought some back from someone else's yard in the spring who pulled them out as weeds. har har har. One woman's weeds . . ...

I have read that the FL paintbrush is cultivated by some larger nurseries. I'll try again next year after we read that they were butterfly magnets. :)

Yeah, I think Select Seeds sells them. I remember seeing them in a catalog and just laughing. I pick and choose which weeds to grow. Spanish Needles are ok until they go to seed; those paintbrush flowers can get kind of big and take over my other plants so I have to watch them. The butterflies and bees prefer the Spanish Needles (and the porterweed, another native plant) so I encourage them over other wildflowers.

Melanie

Did I tell you (think I did) that I purchased a Lantana at Lowe's because of the unusual looking white flower/weed that was growing in the pot with it? Turned out to be Bidens alba/Spanish needles. I made the mistake of planting it in the center of one of my wildflower beds, and I could not believe the growth/spread! Everywhere it touched down it put out roots. Kept pulling but still growing and finally burst into flower. Ha ha h a.

This time of years everybody seems to prefer the asters, tho the S. needles are seeing some action. I like the wild/prairie/meadow look, so native weeds work best.

I guess it's time to start planning next year's weeds. A friend from FL told my BF today that they were starting their tomatoes this weekend. I still have a couple of red ones out there, but the rest may not make it.

I'm sleepy! This cloudy weather makes me want to start my long winter nap. :)

Not many bugs today, except for the neighbor's honey bees.

It looks like my Queen isn't going to come out of her chrysalis. In the same tank, I had Monarchs and there is a parasitic fly in there right now along with another fly pupa. The diseases and parasites always seem to get worse as the season progresses. : (

Melanie

I saw a parasitic fly today on a leaf right at the entrance to a cocoon made by a caterpillar. I watched for a while and it looked like he was just waiting for the caterpillar to come out.

Unfortunately this week I found 2 tobacco hornworms (spinx moth) parasitized. There's nothing you can do, just watch it happen. Stinks. The eggs were likely laid on a Datura metel I have in the driveway. The Spinx moth came at night to pollinate. :/

steadycam3, what does the "parasitic fly" look like? Amanda, I so like those nocturnal Sphinx Moths. Because of their night-shift work. I now have several dozen of Datura seeds for next year.

My little longtail is still eating and making frass. Had to bring into the kitchen 2 days ago because we have a cool snap... 40's at night. Im afraid I messed up his diurnal rhythms because my house is never very dark. I doubt you can see very well in these photos but here are a couple showing the little leaf house he has built. Ive not seen him in quite a while but leaves outside his house keep disappearing and frass keeps falling.

The fly is tiny and sits with wings outspread looking like a parked plane but about 1/8" wingspan.

This message was edited Oct 27, 2012 9:50 PM

The parasitic flies I get look a lot like regular house flies. They're about the same size. I'll try to get a picture when this one dies.

Melanie

I read up on the spinx moth. Apparently their larvae and the tomato hornworm appear quite similar. I don't think it matters much, they both host on plants in the Solanaceae family - night shade, the datura and tomato are both in the family, so it's anybody's guess. I guess they are both preyed on by other insects in this fashion.

I thought, mistakenly I think now, that the little white pods that are attached to the body are the eggs, but the parasitic wasp(s) actually inject their eggs into the caterpillar's body. :/

Court has been calling this one cat a Zombie. Just in time for halloween. I found one on the Datura and one on a tomato plant not too far away.

A.

Question,, I found all these lovelies on dill in the garden yesterday.. and it is quite cool here... going to be down to 39 tomorrow night. Should I dig plants and bring them in??? Or let them alone?

Here's an update on the Zebra Longwing cats. I think I have nine of them.

Melanie

Mellie, they are soooo cute! I would like to just SEE a long wing. I have passiflora blue crown but I dont think I have anything else they might like. I saw a long-tailed skipper today, my first ever but it wasn't from the caterpillar Im rearing. It was nectaring on lantana. I went inside to get my camera and he was gone when I came back.

It's a beautiful day in Tampa and the butterflies are out and about. When I went out to get food for the Zebra Longwings and water the orchids I saw quite a variety.
1. White Peacock
2. Monarch cat
3. Gulf Frit
4. Tiger ST

I also saw a Polydamas and a Long-Tailed Skipper but couldn't get good pictures of either. I also saw a Cassius Blue that was acting weird. Somehow, it was stuck to my plumbago. I think it was trying to lay an egg and something went wrong. I gently grabbed her and pulled her free and she immediately took off flying so I guess it wasn't anything too damaging. One of those rare moments when it's okay to touch a butterfly. Glad I could be of service, LOL!

Melanie

Here are two that I have waiting to eclose. We have had a large influx of monarchs and queens the last couple of weeks. I currently have 3 queens and 4 monarchs in the bf rearing cage. I had 2 GFs eclose yesterday and 2 queens the day before that.

Things are going well on the Texas coast....we even had some rain last night!

Russell

I saw a red admiral today. First one Ive ever seen. They aren't around here but it's probably because I dont have the right host plants.

I noticed some on some black mustard, The little cats were all over it!! Might take your weather(the mustard), snapdragons and nettlle are suppose to be, they really love the snapdragons ,the nettle not as much and you really don;t want that anyway!!lol
Snaps have a real difficult time with sun and heat together,lots of that where you are.

Thanks for that info. You are spot on about the heat here and well the nettle would be quite a sacrifice. Im glad to know there is something I might be able to grow for them.

I am am talking about Brassica nigra, just in case you do try that, I don't know about alba I do have a bunch of seeds of that but I would have to run a germination test on them before I sent any to anybody.I can do that if your interested in trying the mustard (B nigra), my snaps cooked this year ,

I was just looking on google to see where I could get some. If you have the nigra, I could try them and sow heavily in case they are old.

Queen on coral porterweed this weekend.

Great color on this one!

Russell