Caught myself a giant swallowtail in mid-flutter. Since getting a good picture is the hard part... now I really feel like a flutterby gardener. I think this one was laying eggs on the Rue. 9666666666859
(Those numbers are a secret message from my cat to yours.)
Looks like you are going to be a mom soon! Mine were out again today. I had to buy more Rue recently because it's so hard for me to keep alive. I've still not decided on the right spot to plant them. Think if I just run around behind the GST with the plant that they'd get the hint??
I bought some rue in fall and kept in the GH. Mine all died too. No one sells it around here either. Had gotten it off e-bay since they said it was perennial.
I've never been able to get mine to live long enough to qualify as an annual. lol I probably have had it last a season but not longer. That's a bummer to have to buy them on ebay. I think that might be quite addictive too. I think I've finally decided that it can't take my full sun and doesn't like to be overwatered. I'm thinking I'll just try these in bigger pots tho and just kind of move them around, but then again, that might confuse the GST's.
Haha! My cat used to post messages all the time.
She's really old now (almost 21), and doesn't seem to want to type anymore. :(
*grin* As you can see, he was walking across the number keypad just as I hit "send."
I don't know what to tell the rest of you folks about the rue. I got it at my local native nursery, plunked it into the ground and ignored it. It's about two feet high, flowered and set seed already this year and is now putting out new growth just in time to feed the giant swallowtails. It lives in full sun and has not been brought inside for the winter.
Isn't that funny how some plants just don't work out for some people but the same plant will do really well for someone else? Like Columbine. I can't keep that stuff growing. It just dies back on me. But JaxFlaGardener has tons of it that looks great. And I believe he does very little to them.
Question here. What's Rue? I did a look up and found nothing. I don't recognize the plant from the picture.
Thanks,
Art
An herb. It's traditionally used in Italian cooking, and is very bitter to the taste. (I nibbled on some last night.) It can cause a rash on the skin for some people, so gardeners are usually advised to take care when handling the plant. The dried leaves can be used for insect repellent. It's also been used for high blood pressure, epilepsy and for colic. It also provides an excellent defense against witches. (Seriously. The herbal guide really says that!)
It's quite pretty and the swallowtail larvae love it.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/312/index.html
Cool flutterby on the fly but now I'm regretting hacking back some rue yesterday. It was about to set seed and also starting to cover a yellow oak leafed hydrangea that finally found a spot it was happy in, so I was whacking last night. I hope there wasn't any eggs in there. :(
Are there other plants that serve as good hosts for Giant Swallowtails? A neighbor watched a Giant lay eggs on her lemon tree yesterday and we found a good many eggs. If all these eggs hatch they will devour her lemon and she has babied it for long time and has lemons for the first time.
Rue has a hard time with our humnidity so it is hard to find around here. What else could she use as a sacrificial plant for her babies and, if she put another host right beside the lemon do you think they would migrate to the new plant? She wants the butterflies and the lemons!
If the caterpillars started out on the lemon, then the insect's body chemistry is already acclimated to the chemicals in the citrus. Moving it to another plant could cause it to starve or even be poisoned. Moving the eggs shouldn't be a problem! Just move 'em before they start munching. Cardinal rule of butterfly gardening: once the caterpillar starts eating something... that's the only thing it should eat.
It seems like the other swallowtails (black, palamedes, etc.) can adapt to anything in the carrot family, so lots of dill, fennel and parsley is in order for them. The butterfly lady told us to move the blacks and palamedes swallows to the parsley and fennel so we could save the rue for the Giants. On further searching, I found three other plants recommended as larval food for the giants.
• Common Hop Tree - Ptelea trifoliata
• Torchwood - Amyris elemifera
• Hercules Club - Zanthoxylum clava-hercules
I've never heard of any of those, so it might actually be easier to find rue!
I'm surprised that you say that about humidity: I didn't even know there's a place more humid than Florida! The rue does fine here. You could keep it indoors and just put a screen over top to keep your caterpillars and your flutterbys in one place until you're ready to set them free in the world.
You might check out www.naba.org -- It's the North American Butterfly Association's website. Great info there. You can download PDF files listing all the best nectar and larval food plants for your area.
8ftbed: take your cuttings and stick them in jars of water to keep the foilage alive. The cats will still eat it when they hatch. Doesn't have to be attached to the mother plant at all! This would be a great way to bring 'em inside, put some netting over top and teach the kiddies about the flutterby life cycle. If you haven't composted your cuttings already!
And remember: just about all plants will survive a thorough munching! If you see a caterpillar devouring your heirloom prized whatever, don't smoosh 'em. Let them eat and give the plant a little extra TLC and water and it'll come right back. Think of it as Mother Nature's way of helping you prune.
Example: My passionflower vines were in the neighborhood of around 6 feet tall until the gulf fritillaries opened the buffet. I now have one vine left -- that must be non-native because nobody's eating it -- and several 2-inch stems sticking out of the ground. The flutterbies have stopped laying eggs on what's left because they can see that there isn't enough food to support the larvae. Already, new leaves are poking out and soon, (says the butterfly lady at my native nursery) the vine will come back and the zebra longwings start up and the whole cycle starts all over again. It's a good thing those passionflowers are such tough plants -- now you know why. They have to survive constant munching all summer. If the citrus is established, it ought to live through being used as a salad bar also.
Advise your neighbor to be very careful about moving the eggs -- they're very easy to smoosh accidentally. But don't let her move the caterpillars if they've already started eating. She'll still get lemons. I had a hornworm completely devour my habanero pepper -- ate two whole peppers to boot. Already have leaves coming back on the plant. The hornworm, I'm sorry to tell you, didn't fare so well. It was relocated to a less survivable habitat.
Well now I'm even more confused about the Rue! I thought for sure it was the hot sun, but FL has both sun and humidity. I have a butterfly gardener friend in Ohio and he has a lot of it, which I thought was because it was cooler. Hmmfff... maybe I'll experiement and put them all in different spots. The one I planted so far gets sun until about 4pm and it's doing good. But then again, it looks just as good as the 2 still in containers. I just need to get a citrus tree!!
I've never really heard anyone say that moving cats after they have started eating will actually kill them. I have switched food on BST's, some would eat and some chose the original. They were all fine, but all the food was in the carrot family. Maybe going from an herb to a citrus tree is different. ? Interesting... The GST's that I've raised indoors before ate longer than the BST's too.
KKB, a good citrus tree would be a Florida Wild Lime. The drawback to the tree is the needle like spines it has. It's a very attractive tree and the giant swallowtails love it. Their cats don't to much damage to it at all. I have new cats on it about every 10 days.
Art
Is this a Giant Swallowtail? Flew into my screen today. It looks the same as in the picture at the top of this thread
How about a Poncirus trifolate? Artcons comment about needle like thorns on his lime reminded me I have several good sized Poncirus seedlings - which also have mean thorns. If we put one beside the lemon tree perhaps being moved from one citrus to another won't be too traumatic.
Yes May, that is a Giant ST. Are you holding it captive there? lol
ardesia...I don't know what that plant is, but I'm not familiar with the citrus plants, but it sounds like it's worth a try to me. If they don't like it they will crawl back over to the other tree. I'll have to look these trees up. I'm not really interested in having one tho since it has thorns! eeekkk!! Isn't there a "user friendly" citrus? Lemons? Oranges?
All citrus trees have thorns. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. However, not all citrus thorns are created equal. The citron tree for example has absolutely wicked thorns. My lemon tree and clemantine tree have fairly "mild" thorns compared to all the other citrus I have (limquat, lime, grapefruit). But seriously, the lime has the worst of all the thorns and it's still not that big of a deal. The only time the thorns become an issue is when I've pruned the trees and I have to haul the cut limbs off.....just have to watch where I grab them and not just reach down and grab a big pile of them at once. So I would really encourage anyone to grow citrus is your climate will allow (or if you have a greenhouse).
"Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet"...and as far as I'm concerned, citrus fruit is GREAT in all sorts of things to eat :-)
-Julie
Poncirus trifolate is one of the citrus they use for rootstock. The fruit is smallish and mostly seeds, although I think it has a pleasant flavor. The tree is hardy which makes it ideal for grafting the more tender hybrids onto.
I learn something new every day. We have Mesquite trees with thorns, so that's what I imagine thorns looking like. Very strange that the caterpillars crawl around thorns. Julie, do you have a picture of your trees thorns?
Maydreams, that is actually a Palamedes Swallowtail. According to my book, "Florida Butterfly Gardening," by Marc Minno, you can distinguish between the Giant and the Palamedes because the Giant has two yellow spots on each "tail" of the lower wing. The photo you posted does not show the spot on the tail that remains, so I think it's a Palamedes.
It's one tiny detail that distinguishes the two, so it's very easy to confuse. Especially when you're trying to ID mid-flight.
Yup, here are some pics I just took (not the best time of day for taking pics, so clarity was sacrificed for a prompt response). And you've forced me to take a different view of my lime tree. I suppose since it gets pruned more often than the otheers (due to growth rate as well as location in the garden) I get stabbed by it more often....so had the notion that it's thorns were more sinister. But the pics below will show that how wrong I was LOL
-Julie
Clemantine tree thorns:
Grapefruit tree thorns:
Lemon tree thorns:
Lime tree thorns:
Limquat tree thorns:
The Clemantine tree has never been pruned as it's a very slow grower compared to all the other Citrus I have. I guess that's why I never noticed it's lethal thorns! Yikes!
Kumquat (actually in the Fortunella genus) doesn't have any thorns at all that I can find.
-Julie
I have had orange, grapefruit and Crown of Thorns in the past. I currently have many Bougainvillea. All of them were thorny, all of them would draw blood. The Wild Lime is the worst. It's thorns feel as sharp as a needle. The thorns also have a hook to them. You can't brush into it without getting a good prick, or if careless a deep one.
Art
Thanks so much Julie! That first one does have some painful looking thorns! Ouch! I had no idea they all had them. It looks like there is enough room between them for the cats to get around. I was thinking more like roses, which from what I remember they are closer together.
Art, ouch there too!! and that one is like a fish hook. Geez, I'm thinking I better start learning how to keep this Rue alive!
Dogzilla, good catch on that PST. I looked at it several times thinking something might be different, but it wasn't lower spots. I guess it was just my imagination tho. I have one small book by Stokes and a Butterflies and Moths (Smithsonian Handbook) and neither mention the PST. I've read discussions before but forgot all about it. Apparently not too common??
Maybe it's a regional thing. That's the second one I've seen in this area this year. It could be specific to Florida. (All my books are.)
Say, you're not anywhere near San Antonio, are you? I travel there for business pretty often...
Thanks Dog...I was checking all around to make sure and I didn't catch the no spot. She is now enjoying the area once again. Konkrete...She was captive for a short time so my kids couldn't do the proper research but now she is hpefully out there making babies :)
Chris
Well, my GST did lay some eggs, which I got pictures of. I will post those later. Last night, I got a great shot of a freshly hatched cat with about half a broken egg behind it. This morning, the egg casing was gone. Who wants to bet that the egg casing is the first thing they eat before proceeding on to the plant?
I will continue to post photos throughout the life cycle of these little guys -- maybe I'll even put a net over the whole plant so we can catch the chrysalis and metamophosis and everything.
That macro lens is way too much fun! The more you know, the more you see!
Yep, they eat that egg. I've seen them do it before too. I see several GST's outside now, but still no eggs. You could be right about that PST, but we could have them here and I wouldn't know the difference. I think I'll go out and look for the spots on their tails now.
I love my macro but sometimes it just will not focus! When it does tho, I can get some good pics.
I'm about 5 hrs North of San Antonio. This state is so big you just can't live close to anything.
