Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY PICTURES # 111, 0 by vitrsna

vitrsna wrote:
Lily, that is a beautiful looking cat house but i've only seen sections of it. Is it all glass? How is it ventilated to allow air to pass through? Lovely pics everyone. I love the hummingbird Brenda.

I now have my tropical milkweeds growing in containers. I find it easier to control the predators when the plants are in containers and generally have better caterpillar survival rates. The one problem i do have is that there are no hiding places for the caterpillars when they are sleeping during the day so i started putting odds and ends of vegetation (not interesting to predators) at the base of the plants. This photo is an example of a Jatropha multifida leaf that i put in a container. A couple of Queen caterpillars moved from sleeping on the bottom branches of the milkweed to underneath the J. multifida leaves almost as soon as i set them in place. Can you see the Queen hiding on the underside of the leaf? The predators did not bother the pillars at all there. Now i am thinking of planting some sort of bushy green plant in the same containers the milkweeds are in. Something bushy and green that would not attract other caterpillars, i.e. not a host plant or nectar rich plant so that the pillars will have more natural hiding places. I just need to find the right plant to use. I think this will add even more protection and better improve the survival rates.