This is the first year I've put in fennel..so far, there are 13 large cats on it..
Is the fennel an annual?.. Or perennial? Will it get too large for the pot?
Thanks,
Lynn
Swallowtail cats on Bronze Fennel
I assume you probably know that those are Black Swallowtail cats. If it's in a gallon pot, it should be okay. It's a perennial. Do you have more fennel or some parsley? They eat a lot sometimes. Congrats on the cats!
Lucky you! I need to get some bronze fennel!
Congrats Lynn!
Try and put netting or tuille over the pot to protect them. I had some once on my Parsely...before I could get them in to the cage, some Cardinals got them, it broke my heart.
I have fennel in the ground and it reseeds and comes back up every year. Between that and the queen anne's lace I get lots of ST cats.
I hear ya, Rox! I've lost a LOT of BST cats to birds! I bet it was cardinals here too. They hang out in my yard because of the feeder and are always looking for some seasoned munchies! LOL! Nothing like dill flavored caterpillars for dessert! :-P~~
I wasn't sure what kind of swallowtails they were..I had a pair of Eastern Tiger Swallowtails
around and I thought it might be them..
I've lost so many Monarch cats to various predators..
I have lots of cardinals too. I' ll have to get some net.
My dill didn't make it.. I'll try again next year..But the parsley is OK..The Italian Parsey is going to seed right now..
I'm so glad the fennel is perennial.. It's beautiful..It's in large pots so should be OK..
I'm a nervous mother and I wish they'd spin their cocoons..can someone describe what they look like or post a picture?
Thanks all,
Lynn
It's exciting too, isn't it?
Here's a chrysalis, they can be brown or green and will often be right on the plant. They don't 'J', they just don't move for a while and then make the chrysalis.
Here is another one. I believe someone told me my photo is upside down, but when I found this it was actually laying horizontally on the parsley. At the time, I didn't know which was the top. I haven't taken the time to rotate the picture.
I planted seeds for the bronze fennel last year and it is back as a perennial this yr. mixed in with milkweed. I'll have to go look for some BST cats on it. I recently saw our first BST cat on the parsley and when I went back to check on him he was gone...we have ALOT of birds of which I never thought of them eating cats until I read your posts ~ the cats get alot fatter than your avg earthworm!
I mostly have wasps and spiders preying on cats. For some reason, the birds around here don't do that much preying on them. The other day, I saw a spider (no web) with a dead butterfly. No way to know if the butterfly was dead before it got it or the spider killled it. But I know that kind of spider kills the smaller cats.