Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: More Black Swallowtail Butterflies ...., 1 by beckygardener

beckygardener wrote:
Donna - Congrats on your Privet seeds sprouting! I'm telling y'all ..... if this plant grows for you like it did for me .... look out! You'll have a nice-sized small tree or shrub the first year! LOL

I love my little Privet tree. It dropped all of it's leaves when we got down into the upper 30's back at the beginning of December. (I think that was when the temps dropped.) And it already has tons of new leaves and new branches! Gotta love that kind of growth from a plant! Now I am curious to see how the sulphers like it as a host plant. Either way, I just love the delicate leaves and the light shade it provides to protect my ground plants from the heat and sun. It only provides sparse shade, not full shade. Nice, nice tree. Pretty blooms. And FAST growing!!! Enjoy growing it Donna, Deb, and Paige! If anyone else would like some seeds, dmail me. I have some left from this past fall.

Deb - I can't believe you sent me one of your Swallowtail chrysalis, too! I am sure with the temps we've had here that it will eclose within 2 weeks after I get it. I just released 2 more BSTs today. I had to cool glue 2 of them to a stick because they fell down in the cage. There is one left on the stick to eclose and my guess is that it will be very soon. It's turning dark. My dh is particularly partial to the BST. He just loves the yellow and blue that stand out again the black on the wings! They are pretty butterflies for sure! Do you know the date it morphed into a chyrsalis? How about the GF's chrysalis date? This will be interesting. :-) I love experimenting!

I need to put my spicebush seeds in the refridgerator. Got to do that! I keep forgeting. Does anyone know how long I should keep them in cold stratification?

Deb - I wanted to show you what my little Hercules Club plant looks like, so here is a photo of it.