Interesting butterfly behavior

Here's a photo showing 3 different cats at different instar stages. Pretty cool, huh?

I have parsley in my garden as well, but they always seem to go for the dill plants. Here's the cat eating the dill seeds. Crazy, huh? (The one in the background is the cat that is going into the chrysalis stage right there on the dill stem.)

I've noticed the same things as you on the Black Swallowtails.. now I am curious about their winter behavior in Florida.. Wondering if they will overwinter, since your Sulpher eclosed yesterday. It isn't tecnically Winter yet, so we will just have to see what happens. Both definatly overwinter here in 8a.
I agree with you about the out of food thing. That is surely the best thing to do this time of year, besides, you could use a break..:-)

I love those pictures, great angle!

Yep they really like the flower tops as babies and the seeds when they get bigger, and yes jamb packed with vitas and mins for them. Mine have been asleep about a month now.

That one pic is similar to my last set, in three stages..deja vu, all over again, lol. They were all a few days apart as eggs, and closer to 1 & 2 days apart to morph. I wonder if they will also have different eclosure dates too...

Deb - Last year I thought about buying a screened tent. You know, the kind that has screening on all four sides. I seriously thought about making a HUGE butterfly/cat cage that way. I was going to put down patio pavers as flooring and bring in potted host and nectar plants and of course add a lawn chair and perhaps a mister to provide a fine mist of water spraying for them to bathe and cool off in. I'd sit out there and enjoy it all in my own private little butterfly/cat aviary! LOL I might still do that ..... THAT's what I'd call Heaven! lol

Those are great pics Becky! I'm sorry you aren't feeling well. We've been lucky to have not caught all the viruses going around at my son's school. His teacher was out 2 different times with different ones. My son's asthma kicks in tho when the viruses start a week or so before Thanksgiving. I've decided that next year I should keep him home that week! ;)

You certainly are staying busy! I love doing it but it can be tiring. I'm glad for the break from it right now. Roxanne is right, I would surely send you some milkweed if I had it but it turned to mush with that freeze. Not a green stalk in sight.

You should have seen MY yard about a month ago! It looked like it had snowed with all the milkweed fluff. Remember how I said I had it drying in paper bags and wasn't going to sort the seeds out inside? Well, I found that after they got really dry and started separating that I could hold one edge of the paper sack open and then pump the other half open and shut and the fluff would start puffing out! The seeds would fall and the fluff just PUFFed up and out. I would do that and my son would run and chase them. He had a ball but boy my yard was a mess!

I like the little hatchery. I am so unorganized with my cats. I've got bug huts, an aquarium, a borrowed small cage like yours (did request one for xmas or bday), mesh hampers w/net over the top, and I even have a wire trash can sitting over some chrysalis that are stuck in a jar. No wonder I find stray cats.

Sounds lika plan girl! You could use a netted area anyway! Something with bones for plastic, or netting, depending on how cold it is... Now you have my wheels going with fitting PVC pipe together to make a skeleton. PVC is really cheap, and has all sorts of fittings. Like the really long 1" pipes will bend into a half circle tall enough for me to walk into. A solid base frame to mount them on, etc.. Then use thick poly or netting, either one...

Well, I'm feeling slightly better. The wonderful sub yesterday offered to sub for me again today, so I decided that might be a good idea. We've got about a week left of school and I need to be there the closer it gets because the kids get excited about the holidays and get pretty wild and crazy. So I'm gonna get some minor things done and rest.

Ya know, Deb. You are on to something! My thoughts are this ..... make a PVC frame and then screen it in. AND THEN put temporary plastic around it in winter to use as a greenhouse! It could do double duty! I wish my yard was level and not sloped. I would really like to do something like this! There may still be a way though, it's just going to take a lot of planning and work. But boy! wouldn't that be awesome to have a 6' X 6' or 6' X 8' structure to raise cats in and then use it as a greenhouse in winter! You could build wooden free-standing shelves for it or buy cheap plastic stackable shelves for the greenhouse and use them for all the plants in the Spring/Summer for the cat house. And of course leave enough room to add a lawn chair so that you could sit in there to work and enjoy your little crawling and winged friends! Whoo Hoo! Sounds like a great plan!

I released 3 of the 4 Monarch butterflies today. The one that fell down as it's wings were dyring has one side of it's wings crimped and just can't fly very far. I guess she gets to hang out with me for her life cycle. I put her on the milkweed flowers (of which there are plenty). Seems the cats don't care for the flowers as much as the leaves and stems. So she gorged herself with nectar and is all fat and sassy now back in the cage. I'm going to release the sulpher butterfly as soon as it's wings are completely dry. It's sooooo darn cute!

This is really crazy ..... but I was out grabbing some more milkweed seed pods as they are opening, and I found big ole' fat monarch cats crawling around on the ground. They were in some of the most unlikely places. I think they are looking for a place to chrysalis but I actually have to look where I am walking cause they are all over the ground. What's up with that, huh??? This is absolutely insane to see this many monarch cats all over the place. I think I've created a monster situation by planting so much milkweed in my yard. Good grief! It's almost like scary .... invasion of the monarch catepillars!!! Yikes! lol I'll probably have nightmares about this tonight.

I think being outside in the fresh air instead of stuffy house or classroom is making me feel soooo much better. There is so much dampness in Florida. I guess the word is "tropical". lol It kind of settles in the house and any buildings. Which is why I run my A/C year round. I should live in AZ where it is really dry. I have terrible sinus infections here because of all the humidity. Gonna relax and chill for awhile. I can NOT be sick..... no! Go away germs!!!!

I was just thinking that the caterpillar season was coming to a close. Only one BST cat hasn't pupated yet. Of course, there are still GF cats. I had put the GF cats I brought in for the wost of the freezing weather back outside for now, since we are back to warm weather again. Then I went outside this morning to look around and something caught my eye. A hole in a milkweed leaf. Yes, it's a tiny 1st instar Queen cat! Darn! I released the 3 Queens I raised last week. So there must have been mating going on. All the other Queens and Monarchs that came through so late in the migration season did not lay any eggs in the yard and I haven't seen any of those this past week. But I had found those 3 cats on a wild Antelope Horn earlier and they developed more slowly than the ones I raised earlier in the fall. Well, I know that winter weather will be back. Hope this little one will survive when it emerges later on. I hate releasing butterflies when I know they may not survive freezing weather. The BSTs and two-tailed tigers should hopefully overwinter...I have them in a cage outside on the covered deck.

Excellent Linda!! On the BST and TT.... Ya know, now that we watch them so closely, all sorts of things go on we never knew before... Guess they've been going on all along, right under everyones nose.
I am so thrilled to be among so many conservationalists...like you Linda..


Everyone Else= People who look at a plant, see a hole, and emediatly call the exterminator.

Conservationalist= People who look at a plant, see an hole, and emmediatly say, "Oh boy! What if it's a Caterpillar?"

One who conserves will always think of what the worm will become..Not the toll in providing it's food. Sure there are some less desirable critters, but it's better to think in terms of the eventual end result. Not just get a shotgun and shoot in the air.

Well ...... I couldn't stand it any longer! I broke down and bought more milkweed plants. I know, I know .....

And even funnier ..... when I was looking at the milkweed, low and behold, there were Monarch cats all over them! LOL So ...... I picked every single last cat off all the plants at HD and put them on the 6 plants that I bought! LOL There were 17 cats total! Almost all of them are in their last instar. So they should be going into their chrysalis stage soon.

When I got home, I picked another 24 cats off the milkweed stalks in my yard. Not much else left of the plants. I just felt so sorry for them. They looked hungry. So now I just added another 41 cats to my cages. I've released 17 butterflies this week so far. Every day 4-5 butterflies emerge ..... and in turn more go into a chyrsalis. It feels like a revolving door! For every one I release, 1 or 2 more go into their chrysalis stage. And unfortunately, I'm still seeing Monarch butterflies hanging around my yard. I think some are those that I have released. No more plants for them to lay their eggs on. I hate that!!! I wait off and on all year to see these beauties and then I run out of plants! Arghhhhhhhh....

I can honestly say that I have surpassed last year's raise and release count of approximately 200. This year it looks like it is between 250-300. I don't know if any of them migrate. If so, I have a feeling it is to Miami or somewhere south of me. Since they are over here on the east coast, I can't imagine them flying west for so long. It's long enough just crossing the gulf. There's no way they could add another several hundred miles! I am sure they either stay here locally for their life cycle or go directly south of me.

I am also seeing more of the Black Swallowtail cats on my dill this past week. I have parsley in the herb garden too, but for some reason the mama butterflies like laying their eggs on the dill. I counted 27 BST cats in various instar stages. I also found another one that was a chrysalis right on the dill stalk, so I cut the bare stalk (leaves all eaten off) and brought it into the screen porch and just stuck the stalk into the dirt of one of my plant pots right next to the other stalk from the one I found the other day. I will just let them stay there for now until their color changes. Of course, if I forget, I'll be seeing a couple BST flying loose on my porch.

I also found 3 Monarch chrysalis hanging, of all places, off the leaves of my large Mexican Sunflower. They had a to crawl quite a distance to get to it from where the milkweed plants were and then climb way up to almost the top leaves. Which is probably the only reason I saw them because they were right there just above my eye level when I was checking the sunflowers. (I'm trying to harvest seeds from it.)

Every day now when I come through the door after getting off work, my son will tell me that there are more butterflies that emerged today. Sure enough! I think it's funny that he notices. This is the family that thinks I am crazy to be actually raising butterflies. They don't get it at all. LOL

Anyway, I can't believe I broke down and bought even more plants! Sheesh! At this rate, I going to have about 100 plants in my yard before I don't have any more room for any more milkweed.

Do they have a recovery group for this kind of obsession? Maybe some of us here on the forum should start a Butterfly Raise and Release Anonymous? lol

That's so funny! You know when you were posting about how you could do no more and that's the way it is..........I was thinking.......she is just ill with the fever, that doesn't even sound like her, (lol) even though I don't know you, I know from your posts that you are deeply committed to the butterflies.

I'm so happy for you! Raise them for us that have no more cats because it's been too cold and they have all gone south. At least every now and then I see a pretty yellow Sulphur but that's about it. Raise them for the people up north that only can see a butterfly when it's in a book. Have I given you enough reasons? lol

I think you are slowly converting your family to be butterfly lovers, it is contagious.

Oh man Becky!
What a time your having with the cats..I have to hand it to you, if I had seen the caterpillars on the plants there I would have bought the ones that didn't have them or I would have switched them to let the next buyer have the fun. How in the world are you gonna feed all those guys?? LOL!
Just when you thought you would get a break too. You will need some down time eventually, and I hope you know when that is.. Your such a hard worker...I think you must run on some kenetic inspiration.

And there's good news your not crazy, lol. When it comes right sown to it, I might do exactly the same thing you are doing.When I get on a tear I don't like to stop till I am done. I would be dead by now if I lived there, :haha.

I had this tree in the back yard that wasn't paying me any rent to take up saplings and walk all over the yard..So I had it cut down yesterday, Yaay! It cleared a lot of space out in the back. Plus they left me the mulch, so I have been moving the pile to the back all afternoon. I know everything on me will hurt tomorrow, but will have to get it all moved regardless of any pain. I keep telling myself how much it is worth to me.

That being said, you can see how i relate to you seeing there are mouths to feed (hungry cats), and not throwing in the towel. I guess you could say we are both on assignments that came with the moxie to pull them off. :-).

Would say take it easy, but I know that's not gonna happen, ROFL!

I was tying up more chyrsalises to add to the hatchery a little while ago. I took a photo so you all could see how I tie them with dental floss to hang.

This is looking into one of my cages. You can see some of the cats already at the top of the cage after just a few hours from moving them from outside. You can also see 3 butterflies. I couldn't release them after work because it was raining. So I will release them tomorrow morning before I go to work.

I found this photo I took last week of what looks like a white peacock. Notice it is on the milkweed drinking the nectar from the flowers. Seems most all kinds of the butterflies like the milkweed nectar. (And this is before my milkweed was nothing but stalks and stems. lol)

This is a photo of one of the Monarch cats hanging in a J on my Mexican Sunflower leaf. There were 2 other cats! Too funny!

This message was edited Dec 14, 2006 8:18 PM

Great pics, that Peacock is lovely!

This is of a Gulf Fritillary. On the DILL no less! What's going on???! These butterflies are kind of confused or something!!! Wrong host plant little GF!!! Ackkkkk!!!

In this photo, you can see one Black Swallowtail chrysalis and one cat going into a chrysalis. The most amazing thing about this photo is that in the pot are 2 Spanish Flag seedings. If you look closely, you can see that they are getting ready to have tiny blooms!!!! Boy, was I surprised to see that! First time I ever grew Spanish Flag. Amazing plants, indeed!

Ya know fly_girl and Deb and others, too ....... It's too bad that the Monarch chrysalis doesn't overwinter. I could put them in the refridgerator and then mail them out to everyone come spring when your milkweed is blooming to start Monarchs in your gardens! I have so many, it's such a shame that I can't share them. It's like sharing seeds! lol

fly_girl - YOU know me all too well! LOL Couldn't let those cats starve!

Deb - I have seen people buy plants at HD and pick the cats off and step on them to kill them. NO WAY am I letting that happen to all those cats I saw on the milkweed at the store! They were beautiful, big, fat, healthy cats! They are now safe and sound in my cages and soon to be in the hatchery! I would have thought twice about only buying 6 plants, but all the cats were big, in their last instar, so I know they won't need much more to eat. And after I got home, several of them climbed to the top of the cage. Probably to start morphing into a chyrsalis.

The ones in my yard were bigger too .... probably from pigging out on all my plants. LOL! Pretty soon, the weather will get colder and they will leave until Spring. So I'm gonna enjoy them as long as I can! :-) :-)

Yes, I must have been SICK when I said I was going to let nature take it's course when the milkweed in my yard ran out. ROFLMBO! I have all these new milkweed plants that will find a permanent home somewhere in my yard. Heck, I should've just grown a crop of milkweed, dill, cassia, and passionvine. Forget the hummer plants. I wasted half my yard on hummer nectar plants! Stuck up little birds won't even come visit my yard! :-P~~~~ Butterflies RULE!!! ROFL!

Deb - You must be a type A personality like me. Either that or we are both over the edge. (Which for me might be a genuine possibility! LOL)

Congrats on getting rid of the tree! Don't ya just love finding or creating more garden space!!!! ROFL!

I was looking at all the chyrsalises that I have hanging in the little hatchery cage. A crazy thought just occured to me ....

I should buy a little 24" fake Christmas tree and hang all the pretty green and gold chrysalises on the branches like ornaments! Wouldn't that be a hoot!? ROFL! And even better, imagine what it would look like as they each emerge. :-D

This message was edited Dec 14, 2006 9:39 PM

For next year, don't forget that you can start new A. curassavica plants with cuttings. At least that might cut down some on buying new plants! Earlier this year I did buy one more Spicebush plant for my Spicebush cats. After that, I decided not to buy any more and ended up caging the 3 plants with screens to keep the mother butterflies off.

Well Becky, that would make a great Cmas card...A pic of a butterfly Cmas tree...
Extreme metaphore! I like it!

Good suggestion Linda...I'm so glad to have the 4 Spicebushes already. Hoping to have some good growth on them before the BFs get here. If not I might have to protect them until they do.
I have a Hercules and Pipevine on the way too.. Boy, this year is going to be interresting! Still a lot to do to keep me busy till then.

Linda - You are right. Actually, I have milkweed seeds from last year (and this Fall's crop too) and started some last winter which are now big plants. But of course, no leaves currently due to the cats. I try to plan ahead, but I just had Monarchs non-stop this Fall. It wasn't that bad in the Spring. You would think with over 76 full-grown healthy milkweed plants in my yard that would be MORE than enough. Wrong! I no longer buy milkweed unless I have no leaves on my yard plants and have hungry cats still crawling around. Which is exactly what happened recently.

My thoughts on all of this ...... whatever you have they will come and lay the eggs to meet the number of plants you have! I don't know how many eggs each female lays in her life cycle, but I bet it is at least 100! So if you do the math, I need an acrea of milkweed! LOL And even that probably wouldn't be enough! LOL (And boy oh boy! would I love to have acreage to plant on!!!) It's been absolutely crazy this Fall with Monarchs constantly hanging around my yard. Even now there are Monarchs still around even though I really don't have any more usable plants for them. I saw one the other day laying an egg right next to the milkweed flowers because that was the only place left on the plant. The cats don't seem to eat any of the flowers. So I have these long tall stalks with just a few flowers at the top! LOL

I may have to cover part of my garden next year with netting to try to control this problem. Or even better cover my potted plants and when the milkweed in the yard is gone, then pull the cats off and put them on the potted plants and into my cages. This all came as a surprise to me this year, because I don't usually have this many due to the wasps and other predators that get the cats before they even get to the 3rd instar.

Plant it and they will come! Once again that is sooooo true!

Deb - I have a small hercules plant. Watch those thorns! Nasty! Beautiful bush though. I just got a starter plant and it is doing very well. As are the wild limes I bought. (Which also has thorns!) The hercules has "hooked" thorns, very sharp! Ouch!!! Good protection for the butterflies and cats though! :-)

For those of us who now have a gracious plenty of milkweed for the butterflies,one thought occurs. In nature, the strongest survive. We are trying to replace the habitat that has been taken away and increase the population. At some point perhaps the best stewardship would be leaving some of the cats to their own devices. I'm not sure what that point is for myself- since I love to bring them in too. I do know that this year I will let many fend for themselves to strengthen the herd.

Re cuttings-
I took all the long stalks they stripped and cut them into ~ 4inch pieces and rooted them. Many of those rooting cuttings put out more leaves and were back in the box as food before they even made it into the soil. I now have tons of milkweed plants.

Just my 2cents,

Maggie

This message was edited Dec 15, 2006 11:40 AM

Maggie~
Your 2 cents and mine make 4, lol. I hope I am able to let nature take it's course, for the most part. I rather not handle them if I don't have to...but definatly want as many as possible to come, nectar, lay eggs, eat, pupate, and then fly away.
I do have birds, but they will not be too happy to have pipevine swallowtail cat as a last supper....yikes. Maybe having some mimicry going on in the yard this year will stave off some of the would be cat eaters. We shall see.

Sure Becky it has thorns! LOL I noticed how your BFs like to sleep in the thorny shrubs. If put in a more out-of-the-way place, yet in full sun...it should be alright. I will try not to snag myself on one of those gnarly hook thorns. Thx!

Maggie - I wish that I had the perfect habitat for butterflies. Unfortunately, my yard has had a huge population of wasps, anoles, lizards, frogs, snakes, birds, etc. Before I started raising and releasing Monarch cats and other cats, I had next to NONE that ever made it to the chyrsalis stage. I had cats, but they rarely made it to the 2nd or 3rd instar stage before they became food for the wasps or other predators. I had the occassional butterfly that would lay eggs, but none of those eggs ever made it to the butterfly stage. I had pretty much the same number of plants and they would get eaten to the ground, but no butterflies. Ever! Since I have been raising and releasing butterflies in cages, my yard has been graced with quite a lot of butterflies! I do believe the butterfly population explosion is due in part to my efforts to raise the cats and release them when they become butterflies.

In my neighborhood, I am the only one within 9 or 10 blocks that even has milkweed in their yard. I know of one other person, but they only have a single milkweed plant which is always chewed down, so you rarely even see it. Most of my neighbors have their yards and gardens treated by professional exterminators with sprayed pesticides. They have no insects at all! Nadda.

I have marked my butterflies in the past and I know for a fact that many of them return to my yard. Often to live out their short lives. I doubt very few of them are migrators. They are just here for a short time before their life cycle ends.

I LIKE and WANT the butterflies in my yard! Which is why most of the plants in my yard are for butterflies and/or hummers. These are the creatures I want to encourage to visit or live in my yard.

In the wild, when the food population goes up, often so does the number of predators! Which might also explain why I suddenly saw my yard invaded by wasps after starting my butterfly gardens. But when I took their food source away by caging the cats, I have seen the wasps population decrease. Much to my relief! All creatures come and make their home where there is an abundance of food. I don't think it is necessarily about survival of the fittest in this case.

Migrating creatures are always on the move. Therefore, they don't provide a continuous and steady diet for local predators. Besides, the worst predator of all creatures is HUMAN! I can proudly say that I am not one of those folks that wishes to exterminate a cat or butterfly that is gracing my yard. Instead I have chosen to assist in their survival.

I also know that creatures that are on the endangered list in Florida often make a comeback due to direct intervention by man! Not by survival of the fittest. Their habitats are shrinking and disappearing. This is directly related to progress and development by none other than MAN!

So .... I will now step off my soapbox!

BTW- I grew quite a few milkweed plants from seed that are in my yard. I only buy when something like this happens when the cats eat ALL my milkweed. Next year I may cover half my plants with netting by rotating exposure to them to keep the population of cats at a reasonable number. I didn't know that you could actually root milkweed. Thanks Maggie! I'll have to try that, too!

I love what your doing Becky! Keep it up, we will just cheer from the sidelines until Spring, lol.. Your cronicles are very refreshing!
I finally got my seeds all packaged up and labeled.. That took some doing. Now I am preparing my beds in back with the new space. There is a section I am working that is about 8'x22', and I am going to put square pavers down the center so I can get to everything. I will have to tak esome pictures of it tomorrow, so I will have a before. I still have the brefore-before pic lol .. That leggy Bradford. I will show you that now. When it comes together a bit more I will make a separate thread.

So many trunks, and only one tree..this thing was walking all over my backyard!
I am so happy, I gained several hundred sq ft.! The base of trunks was about a 2 1/2 ft clutch, but they were covering that corner coming up everywhere. I have to say it was a source of grief for me for so long. Seeing those fellas out at Walgreens that day was a godsend. Now the tree is gone and it is such a relief! Now as soon as I get the soil in I can sow all those new seeds I just bought.....right in time for the rain next week.

Deb, I've never seen a Bradford sucker like that. I have removed several shrubs to make room for more nectar plants. I also am trying to find a place for a passie, I just love those Gulf Frits.

Becky, I love hearing your chronicles too! When I read that 1 out of 100 Monarchs make it, I have to do something. It seems like there are just too many butterfly predators out there. Even if we protect them until release, it's a difficult and dangerous life for them to mate and reproduce once they are released.

That milkweed roots so easily, it even roots just sticking it in the ground. I've started several like that.

I can't believe people pick the cats off and step on them...that made me so sick and sad! I'm afraid I would have to open a big o can of whoop axx if I saw that, it would break my heart.

What she said...

Hi Becky,

Hope I didn't sound like I was advocating leaving all the cats to their own devices? Or criticizing anyone for raising them? I enjoy raising them too and have 3 cages.
For those of us who feel guilty at times for not rescuing every single one of them, recognizing that there is some benefit to leaving some outside is helpful.

Maggie

Maggie - I understand where you are coming from with your suggestion to let some of the cats survive outside without intervention. And that you just can't save ALL of them. It wasn't just one or two cats that I was concerned about this time, it was 24+ that I found in my garden without much food left to survive to the chyrsalis stage.

My concern and why I responded the way that I did was because I know anyone new to butterfly gardening who might be reading this thread and our posts might dismiss raising and releasing them because they may misinterpret this discussion. Yes! It would be nice to just let the cats survive on their own. But what I have personally found when I did that .... was a lack of butterflies and cats in my yard. At first I just thought I was doing something wrong as a newbie to gardening for such creatures. But over time, I realized that it wasn't anything that I had done but instead all the predators that moved into my yard because of the attraction for easy live food. I had to do something if I wanted butterflies in my yard. So I've educated myself about our lovely flying beauties and discovered that it was relatively easy to raise cats in captivity and then release them as butterflies.

The bonus was that they came back to my yard. And not to sound too crazy, but I honestly believe they are not afraid of humans if hand-raised and will fly very close by when I am out in the yard. Sometimes they actually shadow me. They follow me around the yard. My husband has watched them do that a number of times when I was out working in the yard. He was rather amused by them following me. My son thinks that too. He says there are never any butterflies flying around in the yard until he starts mowing the yard and then suddenly they are following him as he is mowing. It's usually the Monarchs that do that but we've seen it happen with the hand-raised Swallowtails, too. My husband jokes that the butterflies think I am their mom. lol But I think what it is with hand-raised cats/butterflies ..... humans are the last thing they may remember before going into a chrysalis and the first thing they see when they emerge. So they don't have that fear of humans like that of a butterfly raised in the wild. And I think they sense we are caring for them and are not going to harm them. I think they "trust" us. Which is an honor in my opinion!

I've seen that behavior with other "wild" animals. Rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, birds, etc. So why not butterflies? I think butterflies are intelligent in their own way. And I think they have a memory. How else would they find nectar and host plants day after day?

I just find it fascinating and so much fun to learn hands-on about these lovely creatures. My garden is nice with all the pretty flowers, but it's the creatures in the garden that make it so interesting! I just love watching them. I also get a kick out of the tadpoles in my ponds, the anoles surprising me in the most unlikely places and doing the funniest things, and the bees that bump me and entertain me with their relentless search for flower nectar and buzzing serenades! I feel like Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole to discover another entirely different world that is just so incredibly amazing! Who knew when you became a gardener that your interest would turn to the garden creatures as well??? LOL

I can't imagine gardening without them! And I know that you and many others here on this forum feel the same way. We do what we can to keep them around, even if that means hand-raising some of them. :-) :-)

Deb - Excellent idea about putting pavers down the middle of your new garden bed. 8 X 22'! Whoo Hoo! Nice size to put all kinds of plants in! That's my kind of garden! LOL I use pavers, too. It's the only way I can get to the back plants when I have a deep garden bed. I can't wait to see what your new bed looks like! Do post some photos! :-) Your Bradford tree reminds me of the Brazilian Pepper Trees here. Only worse because my dh is allergic to the sap when we are cutting them back from the vacant lots around us. They are awful!!! Very invasive too.

fly_girl - Ya know ..... when I saw the poor cats that were stepped on (intentionally) by a customer at HD, I had to bite my tongue. This customer was NOT someone I wanted to approach. Not a friendly looking fella and he was swearing under his breath and talking to himself. He appeared very angry about something. It's usually women that buy the milkweed plants and I have on many ocassions talked to other customers about the butterflies and cats. Some even purchased butterfly host plants after we briefly discussed how I would actually buy plants for the cats to EAT. But for some reason this guy was buying a dozen of them. Maybe his wife or mother asked him to. He was not happy about it. And when he was looking through the plants on display and picking them out, he would pull the cats off and step on them. I had to walk away because it REALLY bothered me. Now, when I find cats, I pluck them off and bring them home! :-) There are ...unfortunately... some folks who see them as a pest.

Thanks Becky ..I am very excited about it...Even talked DH into taking me to HD to get a tuckfull of dirt and manure, lol. A red letter day for me!

I would have had to say something to the big heifer galoot! Wait just a caterpiller-pickin minute fella! Just what do you think your doin'? ...He would have gotten a good scolding..
If something eats a plant, it must mean the plant was c r e a t e d FOR that creature! Duh! Not for some lettuce eating human!

I look at all my plants that way, but first I am a gardener. The one who tends the plants that the creatures live off of. The critters just do what they do after that, and I grab my camera and watch the show. :-D

That's so sad Becky, I would have said something too.....like "put those cats on these plants I'm buying, I'm not letting you kill them all". It's hard to say why he was mad but it was surely displaced aggression.......I hope he doesn't have a dog at home. Why else would you buy those plants unless they are for the cats? They are an aphid and spider mite magnet and they often get scraggly.

Deb, oh you lucky girl....truckload of manure and soil!!! Is it your birthday? lol

The construction industry here has almost come to a complete halt. The fella I saw at HD looked like a construction laborer. My dh is in that line of work, so I'm pretty accurate about recognizing the men and women who work in that field. And the thought occured to me that he might have a had a few drinks before stopping to pick up the plants. He was NOT a happy camper at that time. To me, it was not worth getting into an altercation with him. When folks are unemployed and drinking, not a good idea to get into a verbal disagreement with them. That little voice in my head flashed a red sign saying, "Walk away!" There is the time and place to talk to folks about butterflies ..... and in this instance, that was NOT the time. I was going to go back and check the rest of the milkweed to pull off any survivors in case the man came back for more. But I couldn't bare to see the squished cats on the ground. So I paid for my stuff and left. It rattled me for sure!

I agree with fly_girl - a truck load of dirt and manure ...... a gardener's dream!!! :-) :-) :-) Lucky you, Deb!

You're right...he could have been dangerous.....it could have been on the news......'milkweed rage at HD, 10 cats perish, local girl wounded.'

ROFL!!! ;-D