Hi, Lepidoptera lovers!
(As I explained in another post today,) I'm improving my butterfly garden with additional host plants. I have a few hollyhocks and sunflowers in the yard for the 'American Lady' butteflies, but I am wondering which host plant you provide for Vanessa virginiensis and if you get lots of these butterflies into your garden?
I am particulary interested in the Artemisias used as host plants. (I purchased some 'Dusty Miller' to use as a host plant, but now I am wondering if it is indeed an 'artemisia'?)
Any good tips would be appreciated! Thanks. t.
Which host plant for the 'American Lady'??
Tabasco,
I am cutting and pasting a chart that I found. The website link is underneath.
Butterfly: Host Plants:
Black Swallowtail: Dill, Parsley, Fennel, Rue, Queen Anne's Lace
Tiger Swallowtail : Wild Cherry, Yellow Poplar
Spicebush Swallowtail: Spicebush, Sassafras
Giant Swallowtail : Citrus Trees, Prickly Ash, Gas Plant (Dictamnus)
Great-Spangled Fritillary : Violets
Meadow Fritillary: Violets
Question Mark : Nettle, False Nettle, Elm, Hops, Hackberry
Comma (Hop Merchant) : Nettle, False Nettle, Elm, Hops
Mourning Cloak : Willow, Birch, Elm, Hackberry
Painted Lady : Hollyhock, Pearly Everlasting, 'Silver Brocade' Artemisia
Common Buckeye: Snapdragon, Heliotrope, Verbena (offered on our 'Butterfly Nectar Plants' page.)
Viceroy : Willow, Aspen, Poplar, Cherry
Red-Spotted Purple: Wild Cherry, Poplar, Aspen
Gray Hairstreak : Hibiscus, Rose of Sharon, Hollyhock
Silvery Blue : Lupine
http://www.butterflybushes.com/butterfly_host_plants.htm
Hope that this helps!
Thanks, penne, for the good resource and Rose Franklin's website is so full of info.
But I am wondering exactly what host plant American Lady butterflies use in your garden.
Perhaps Helichrysum petiolare? Or cudweed/gnaphalium pensylvanicum ? pussy-toes maybe? artemisia?
I don't want to plant all of the possible host plants, just the ones that are most used or are fairly garden-worthy...
Any recommendations?
Tabasco,
I'm completely clueless.
I just started paying attention to the host plants last season. I'm not even sure yet which butterflies I have seen, since I can't identify them yet myself.
LOL, you're not clueless! You have a great BF garden! I'm just learning myself and I think I'm getting a little obsessed. But it is fun!
On another thread here I saw that the Licorice plant is a host plant for A. L. Luckily, seeds are available from Park's and I think I'll order some. It looks like a pretty little plant. It also looks like it would grow well from cuttings and it might make more sense to buy one plant and take a lot of cuttings from it...If I have any success with this plan I will send you some!
http://www.parkseed.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10101&catalogId=10101&langId=-1&mainPage=prod2working&ItemId=0965
Tabasco,
That's a pretty plant. It reminds me of silver falls dichondra (sp?). I started some this spring after seeing a picture in the container gardens forum. If you have good luck with it, I may try that next year in my containers.
penne,
Have you been following this thread about the 'American Painted Lady'?
I'm still not clear on the correct name for the butterfly...? I thought it was 'American Lady' although I've seen it 'American Painted Lady' often, too.
Vanessa cardui (Cosmopolitan/Painted Lady)
Vanessa virginiensis (American Lady?)
I tried Antennaria seeds last year and I had no success. I also started Pearly Everlastings from seed and had cats on them early on. I knew they were either American Ladies or Painted Ladies, but the two butterflies are so similar that I didn't care which it was. Now I wish I had paid more attention so I could tell you if they worked for the American Ladies!
The pearly everlastings have silvery foliage and I think as far as host plants go it is pretty. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/355/
I just purchased some artemisia 'silver mound' which is said to be a host plant for the 'lady' butterflies I think.
I also purchased 'Dusty Miller' (although I don't think it is an 'artemesia') at walmart last month, but I don't know if that is a host plant...I heard they like silver foliage so I thought it might work...
I have Artemisia 'Silver Mound' and I've never had cats on it, but we are in different areas so maybe it will work there : )
This is a cool list, they only list things that members have either found cats on or raised cats on. http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/butterfly/2004041551026161.html
Thanks Meredith for the GW link. Larry Gene is very good about organizing info into handy formats! And it's great that it's all 'confirmed' sightings. Sometimes I think the internet promulgates a lot of erroneous information through the ease of copying and pasting!....
Drove out to a native plants nursery Friday afternoon scouting for Butterfly plants. I saw a 'Pussytoes' at the nursery and it looked so tiny and low to the ground that I didn't think the butterflies would find it...is yours like that? Maybe I'll try for another cultivar that's a little bigger.
And I meant to buy licorice plant at the nursery but forgot! I even took my gardening notebood along with my list. And I don't see artemesia 'silver mound' anywhere on the GW list! Must get those seeds from Shady Oaks Butterfly Farm and get them germinated. And the pearly everlastings.
I planted out 6 hollyhocks from my wintersowing today, but now that I looked at the GW list, I don't see common hollyhock there as a host plant. Other malvas, but not common hollyhock--at least for butterflies in our region! I also planted out 6 sunflowers which is mentioned as a host plant, so I guess you could say I'm trying to cover many bases.
I also planted out a bunch of different echinaceas including 'magnus' that I heard was a great nectar plant. But I notice on the GW list they also mention echinacea as a host plant so I may get lucky with that one!
I like Larry Gene's list from Garden Web: there are a few entries that I have not heard of before.
Hollyhock will work for a host plant. I recently went to a local butterfly place and that is what they raise their painted ladies on. They had info pointing out - to look for the blue eggs. And you could see the eggs, now whether or not the butterflies choose to lay eggs on them by there own choice, in the big outdoors is a matter of chance. :)
Well, that's good to know. I started the hollyhock seed jsut for the painted ladies. I can't really grow them properly in my garden, but I will find a space for them somewhere, maybe in a big pot.
Tab, I am in the same boat as Meredith. I had a whole lot of Painted Ladies or American Painted Ladies hatch all on one day at nearly the same time, and I think they all came from this plant from Bluestone:
ANAPHALIS margaritacea New Snow 'Neuschnee' - Pearly Everlasting
http://www.bluestoneperennials.com/b/bp/ANNSS.html
They were so thick I had to wave them off to walk through. Maybe 20 were flying around all at the same time. But as Meredith said, I don't remember/couldn't tell which they were. I was just happy to see them. Interestingly, my dog didn't given them a second glance, ever though they were flying low, practically right in front of his face.
If you get this plant, don't cut it back until spring and when you cut it back, leave a lot of stem for the new growth. I had to re-buy it this year because I cut it flush to the ground :(
Some other miscellaneous musings: Pussytoes will bloom when it's really short. I have seen it blooming in a mowed lawn, so it will bloom when it's 3 or 4" tall, but it gets to be a rather tall plant, maybe 18-22" tall?
E. Magnus is a host for something, but I'm not sure what. Last summer, or late spring sometime after bloom, I noticed the cones were turning very dark brown-black on Magnus...as if they had too much water and were rotting. I went to investigate because I was going to use the seed for swaps and trades. The cones were all sort of falling apart, and you know how they really hurt your fingertips when you pull them apart? These didn't. They were spineless and did look like they were rotting and just sort of raggedly falling apart. I kept pulling them apart, gingerly, in case I got stabbed, and the insides were filled with caterpillars. FILLED! It has been my experience that if it's something I want, like a butterfly, then there aren't many cats, but if it's a true pest, then there are millions. Case in point: I lost all the leaves on an Azalea this year due to the Azalea moth, so that's what I mean...tons of them, and they exactly matched the color of the leaves. Anyway, the cats on the Magnus were too small to take a pic of, and I had a feeling they were bad cats, but I let them go because the flowers had already bloomed, and they were just eating the base of the cones. I never saw anything that could account for the sheer numbers of cats that I saw unless they were non descript moths that were just flying around.
Suzy
Thanks for the tip on the Bluestone Pearly Everlastings! I have been looking at the Bluestone catalog, trying to abstain from ordering this spring, but I think I'll have to succumb, just for a few things. Especially if they will send some 'Lady' cats with their 'Pearly everlastings'!
What are you doing awake at 3 a.m.? By the way....?
Suzy, that is so weird about the coneflowers! You know the same thing happened to mine but I thought they had some disease! It didn't happen to all of them and it happened after they bloomed, so I figured it was just something caused by the current weather conditions, and cut back the ones like that.
Edith's site Butterflies ETC has the info you are looking for.
http://www.butterfliesetc.com/aabybutterfly.php
This is a great site to wander around in. I just finished growing out some APLs. I have cudweed (APL) & plantain (PL)seed if you want some. It has lots of chaff but just plant it with the chaff.
American Painted Lady Butterfly Vanessa virginiensis
Host Plants: Cudweed
Nectar Plants: Stoke's Aster, Butterfly Bush
Painted Lady Butterfly Vanessa cardui
Host Plants: Hollyhock and Ribgrass plantain
Nectar Plants: Stoke's Aster
Maggie
Maggie
Thanks, margaran. Edith's site is full of good info (and so well organized) particularly for the southern butterfly gardeners. (I especially like her instructions for rooting Asclepias.)
I've been weeding in the garden this weekend and I think I've found out that I have cudweed and plantain! And thank you so much for the offer of seeds, but at this point I think I'll stick to the more flower garden type host plants for the PL and APL that some other sites mention. I did call Bluestone and ordered the Pearly Everlastings. Now to find a spot for them in the garden!
T,
The PE is outside m zone. I love the "New Snow ' Neuschnee' ", it's gorgeous but pushing the zone a bit for me to pay that much for it. Might try seeds.
Maggie
Suzy and Meredith: that happened to my echinecea too!!!! I never did figure out what those nasty little worms were about, and I'm hoping it doesn't happen again this year!!!!