Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY PICTURES # 111, 1 by vitrsna

vitrsna wrote:
Thanks Lily...i would have thought that the enclosures would require ventilation, but whatever you are doing is working very well...the evidence could not be more clear. Healthy caterpillars and healthy butterflies, great success.

That's a good question Nuts :-), i am struggling with the answer. It would be a plant that ideally has no flowers, but i can't use a palm because they are all too big. Also here palms are host plants for a variety of caterpillars. And where i live just about everything growing is a host for something and the proximity to the milkweed would cause my most avid predators the wasps to want to explore there. Almost all of my caterpillars choose non-plant items to pupate on because the predators don't look there. So i have decided on a non-plant item, possibly covered with dead leaves and also covered with sun shade material as shown in the photo, but i think i will use a brown shade fabric instead of the green one shown here. I don't think the predators will be interested in exploring this non-plant item in the same way they were not interested in exploring the dead leaves. This is meant for nap times while the caterpillars are still growing and eating and not for pupating. I think it will work, i hope it will work.