Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Look who emerged this morning!, 1 by LouisianaMark

LouisianaMark wrote:
Hi Konkrete,

Sorry to hear about your rue :-( I would think you ought to be able to grow citrus of some sort too. If the Texas heat is too much, maybe some shade screen might do the trick. These cats are easy to grow as long as you have a big enough host plant! The whole process is fascinating!!! My cats were taken off of a lemon tree that the mother swallowtail visited daily for about a week. She must have laid about 20 to 25 eggs on that little tree. I transferred 7 of the little cats to my orange tree, and 5 of those made it to the chrysalis stage. I watched my lemon tree carefully, and not a single one of the cats on that tree made it. They were undoubtedly carried off by one of the many varieties of wasps that we have in the area. Only one cat on the lemon tree made it the 4th instar, and then something got that one too.

I'll post pics of the others when they emerge. I also have 2 black swallowtails that will emerge in about a week.

I'm tryng to grow some host plants for tiger swallowtails (tulip poplar, cottonwood) from the seeds, but not having much luck so far. I saw a few tigers last year and they are my favorite. Here's a pic of one feeding on a lantana.

Mark