Blooms you look so cute "hiding" there in your "passionate" embrace :-)
-Julie
Do you raise butterfly cats indoors?
Ahhh, Blooms .. wish you'd cut that out!! .. hee .. Why you always gotta flaunt
that beautiful long mane of yours .. right here in broad daylight .. in front of the
rest of us .. lik'is ?!? .. That - is jes plain out low .. and, t-totally uncalled fer, I tell ya!
.. LOL ..
(know that I'm only teasin' ya, again) .. fer the most part! .. dang it! .. HEE Hee
Are you at crystalspin's, standing in front of her 'enormous, trying to eat the house' - red passifloras ?
If so .. Geez, a mitey !! .. (and I thought surely, she was embellishin' it jes a mite lil bitty bit) .. LOL ..
Wellll, shame shame on me !! .. LOL .. That is a most gorgeous BIG ol 'bush' of vine there!! .. hee hee
And, naturally .. 'momma' jes kindly accentuates the display also ..
- Magpye
Golly, can I look that when (if) I ever grow up? LOVE your hair, woman. Not to mention your attitude! : )
Mags, I *never* exaggerate!
That pic was taken *before* the vine started growing for this year! This is today, and it has been cut back drastically at least twice between times (three times I think, think DH got irritated at having to fight his way up the sidewalk once as well as I took a garbage can full off it twice this summer).
The flowers in center pic is the Justicia (shrimp plant) that the passi is strangling. I really couldn't get the full effect of how much of the wall the vine is trying to cover, as the neighbor's house that forms my lot-line is only about 8 feet apart, hence the angled views. But you can see in the first pic, the tendrils reaching *around* the house!
~'spin!~
I found a really great page, especially for butterfly newbies like me. This was an eye opener, what those babies need to survive. How big can my data base get? Gee.
http://www.butterflies.com/nabutterflies.htm
LOL .. crystalspin .. hee .. Actually, I was a bit curious ... if Blooms was indeed in front of some of her own, there in Moab ... or, your plants, that you'd mentioned in your prior post ..
It was most easy to tell in that first pic, with Blooms in amongst your plant .. that it, was/is indeed gorgeous, and one humongus plant !! I'd just not wanted to assume so tho'. Although the other info you've provided has been greatly appreciated and shares much more light on just how vigorous your passiflora is!! A nice lil set of pics there ..
Geez, spin .. I hope I've not offended you .. by teasing your mom and you hun! For such, has been the fartherest .. from or any .. of my intentions! And I'd sincerely felt so certain .. that I'd relatively clearly worded it in such a way .. so as to avoid any possible chance of my comments being misconstrued and/or cause any hurt feelings what-so-ever ...
- Magpye
Thanks ladyanne .. it is indeed an excellent site !! ..
- Magpye
Magpye!
Don't worry your pretty lil head, neither of us take offense that easy!
Yes, the big joke about that passiflora is that I replaced a Waverly Salvia with it -- because the Waverly was too big!!! Blooms had a nurseryman holding his sides telling that story!
The problem is, as you can see, ONE passionvine is pushing my space limit... now I have to have two??? (one to attract the GF butterflies, and another to feed the cats?!!) WHERE am I supposed to put it???
Here's one for KB -- it came back to me WHY I looked for and planted the P.vitifolia -- the Sunset Garden Book says it is the ONE passionflower that "doesn't attract caterpillars"... well they got it almost right... it DOES attract the butterflies to lay their eggs, it just doesn't nourish the cats! See, that was before DG's forum and I was thinking that feeding caterpillars was BAD (because they go to other plants and nip them off as cutworms)... forgetting that no caterpillars = no butterflies!
Does anyone know of a cat-feeding passiflora that doesn't wipe out the neighborhood, size-wise? Or shall I plant the biggest and baddest and count on the cats keeping it pruned?
~'spin!~
Spin,
my experience with my passion vine is that the more you have, the more cats you have! I started with 2 or 3 vines (read - one vine coming up out of the ground with 5 leaves on it!), now I have 100+ FEET of passion vine on my fence for the cats to eat - I think I did FINALLY get enough for them to not decimate it . Unfortunately, when I had those 3 original vines, I took all the cats off them and put them on my neighbor's HUGE red vine . . . not knowing any better! I wondered why her vine never had any cats on it - I thought all her feline cats were chasing the butterflies away (she has 20+ felines!).
I'm wondering tho - if I fed them with my vine this year, won't there be MORE butterflies and more cats to feed next year!? Will I ever really have enough? We'll see, I guess! LOL .. .
onalee, Have you got any cuttings started of the Good passion? I'm only 160 mi. NE of you. We are hoping to have Cen.Fla Round-up in (possibly) Okeechobee maybe in Feb. Then those delights can just cruse up here for all the fence the clemantis doesnt have.
MY DH says we are too low of an elevation (32) to have catepillars. What a bummer. They pass us by and head for the Sierra Nevada. Sniff.
I recall lotsa cats when I lived in the Valley! Plant the host plants for the butterflies and they will come!
Really???? How cool, I was rather hoping he might be wrong. Or he is thinking of Monarchs? Most of the hosts are plants I don't have or trees we dont have room for, alfalfa, etc. Still researching here, but I will not give up then! Blessings, John!
Blooms, that is a great picture. Those red blooms are gorgeous. I can see their attraction.
Ladyanne, maybe he is thinking about Monarch's. ? I don't know how butterflies would know the difference in elevation. Maybe you've just never had cats because you don't have any host plants. I don't have room for trees here either, so I just use things like the fennel, parsley, dill, passionvine and a few others. They don't take much space. Plant them and they will come!
Laughing here. We have all the standard host plants, an entire area devoted to parsley for the bunnies, another to herbs of every kind, six citrus trees, three passions, Hollyhocks everywhere, Malva, Borage, Plumbago for the Marine Blues, the town's trees drip with Mistletoe, mallows for the Skippers, Ceanothus for the California Hairstreaks. This year I am adding Milkweed, Goldenrod for the Hairstreaks, some Eriogonum and then I give up.
sugarweed -
Yes, I have a couple started - actually -but be warned, these send out underground runners and they spread that way. I dig them up and either pot them to sell or move them to another spot on the fence. You can, of course, just mow them down, too - but I wouldn't plant them next to a flower bed because they will come up in it and take over. . . .
Onalee
I have permission to plant across the alley, and I know by the over growth of invasives, (that I am removing), replacement with butterfly foder is a great idea. I try to keep all iveys in pots, even the ones in the ground if they have bossy reputation.
Ladyanne, you are doing very well to be calling yourself a "newbie". Don't confuse me. I'm very "concrete", thus my name. lol
so is blond.(couldn't help my self)
do I plant flowers for the butterflys or attract butterflys for the flowers
.... I'm not knowing
but they look as good as they smell (proof it's a "Butterfly" bush)
whooops... posted the same pic twice. Sorry
This message was edited Nov 17, 2004 3:15 PM
pink mist butterfly bush with accessories
8ftbed....WOW gorgeous pics! I need to plant a butterfly bush next spring!
and the perfume ......
the Mexican Sunflower has proven to be an absolute magnet as well.
Hey now SW! ;) 8ftbed, beautiful pics, you attract the butterflies to feed in your beds with the flowers. You attract them to lay eggs with particular host plants. I have 4 butterfly bushes: a purple, white, yellow, and lavendar/pinkish. The last one has been quite popular. Yours looks more pink than mine.
man, butterfly bushes AND butterflies in November. Them were the days.
You know, the variegated Harlequin seemed to attract more swallow tails than anything else.
Kronkrete, just a newbie to catepillars, but an oldie in the garden, I've been a plant/garden/yard/nature freak since my teens. It's my mom's fault!!! Lovely pics, Blaine!!
Onalee, found your scfi store. We'll do business at a future date.
Thanks Sugarweed - I can ship the passion vines, too. Right now, I just have about 2 or 3 small ones potted up. It takes a while for them to really 'take' after you dig them up, and if the butterflies find them . . . well, you know they suddenly have lots fewer leaves than they did before! I am constantly moving the cats from my potted plants to the 'mother plant'!
8ftbed - you are right about mexican sunflowers - I have them every summer and the butterflies and hummers absolutely LOVE THEM. They are an excellent flower to attract the butterflies to your garden!
Onalee
Oh that's terrific. Now I'm p.o.'d I didn't do mex this year. :( Bet I'll have a stand next year though.
crystalspin - reading back through I 'finally' caught the shrimp plant. How much sun do yours get? I was taken with them 2 years ago but not familiar and an employee said sun or shade. It really looked like they were struggling in the sun. Do you have the yellow/white one?
8ft - my shrimp plants are in part sun/part shade and do very well that way. They get mid-day sun, but in shade in early am and late afternoon
Onalee
8ft:
Both of my shrimp plants are the red bracts with white 'tongues' kind... I have thought about getting a chartreuse one -- I like 'odd' looking flowers! Mine get very little direct sun, they are on opposite sides of the sidewalk in the 8-foot wide space between my house and my neighbor's (ou can see a couple spikes reaching into the sun in the center pic above). But it is a "bright shade" because the houses are pale stucco (although the Passiflora does cover part of my side and a large abutilon the other side). In the summer it is hot and dry, tho', because from something like 10 or 11 'til 2 or so it is HOT sun baking down between houses.
If you are talking about MINE struggling, I think that has more to do with the passi strangling it! Both of the Justicias (shrimps) tend to leggy-ness, and I always figured they would probably like a bit *more* sun, but less baking... perhaps a bit more humidity. The ones I see in Daytona area (Florida) are MUCH taller and fuller. Judging from mine's sadder look in the winter (when even less direct sun), I don't believe they would like it in dense or even mostly shade; but that's JMHO.
~'spin!~
Oh no spin, I meant mine. Yours looked great which is why I asked and thank you, and Onalee, for the feedback. When I tried them they got intermittent peaks of sun till about 11 then it was full baking power till evening or vehicles pulled in around 5. Probably never got more than 12" high and leaves would get sunburnt till late in the season when the sun was at a lower angle and the neighboring plants had grown up and was shading them.
I think I'll hunt some more yellow/white ones down next spring and try them on the east side of the house.
Blaine
(... he walks away shaking his head "..sadder look in the winter.." beats my DEADER look in the winter. I gotta move back south!) ;)
This message was edited Nov 21, 2004 7:10 AM
LOL Blaine!
That's what I did.