Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Discouraging find ....., 1 by beckygardener

beckygardener wrote:
I was looking around my garden beds this morning and saw some chewed up leaves on my Cassia (bushes, NOT the Privet Cassia tree. Not absolutely sure what variety of Cassia they are.)

I saw chewed leaves and was all excited! Here we go ..... more Sulphur cats! Well after careful inspection I found two at different instar stages .... both dead. :-( I have no idea what killed them. Here is a photo of one. It's arched back and died in that position.

I do not spray my plants with insecticide. I do water them though, but that shouldn't have affected them. And I usually water the bottom of the plant not the leaves.

I do see some ants crawling around on the bush. But I don't know if they are to blame. I am clueless and bummed about this discovery. :-/

I did manage to find 4 eggs, so I picked off the leaves and put into one of my container cages. Hopefully, they will survive and thrive. Time will tell.

Just goes to show that the odds are really AGAINST the caterpillars. I think there might have been even more than just the 2 I found dead, because other leaves were eaten all around this plant, but no sign of any live cats. Who knows what caused their death??? Such a bummer!