Beautiful pictures, Jane, and congrats on your giant! When she's through nectaring, would you send her here? :)

How tall do your plumbagos grow? Do you have any frosts where you are, and, if so, is plumbago killed by frost? Maybe just the top, not the root?

I've got one more place to plant something in my garden, and a blue flower would be great!

Sherry

There is an Orange Jasmine (Murraya paniculata) that is a host plant for GSTs...I've tried to start one from seeds to no avail! I have a prickly ash I bought from Texas Discovery Gardens plant sale & my next door neighbor has a much more thorny native volunteer that is growing in her yard. I had a thornless lime that the GSTs ignored last year but found 3 cats on my Prickly Ash & tons on the local native plant. This year I'm trying putting my prickly ash next to a new Meyer's Lemon to see if they'll use both??? I also grow rue that was only used last year by the BSTs.

Good luck...waiting to see my first GST for this year! All my raised ones in 2014 eclosed by the fall.

I have several Blue Plumbagos but have never noticed the BFs using it as a nectar source like some of the other flowers I have growing.

Hope we all get lots of GST cats this year!

Imabirdnut, what a beautiful butterfly!

Miss Sherry, they are not big bushes. I have a few around the property and they stay low and on the small size. The one in the photo is intermingled with a Confederate Jasmine vine which is wrapped around the stems and has pulled the branches up along a fence. I like the look.

I also have white Plumbago's which get very large. I'm always cutting them back or they take over the garden. I have never seen a butterfly visit them.

If you are worried about size, the blues are the bushes to plant. Plus the Giants love them. They don't visit the whites.

Shot this this morning. I believe its a Zebra. It is at the top of the picture on the Lantana.

Jane

Giant Swallowtails are frequent visitors here, but I have a mature garden that has lots of Hercules Club and one large wild lime tree. Also, a few neighbors have citrus trees and I'm about a two miles away from a large citrus grove. The Prickly Ash did not do well for me. They did attract GS though.

Blue Plumbago is planted all over Central Florida, Sherry. It does get burnt by freezes, but it comes back afterwards. It is a decent butterfly attractor, not great for me. I don't know how well it would do for you in Southern Mississippi. You might give it a try and lest us know.

The weather here in Central Florida has been terrific for us butterfly and hummingbird gardeners. We have not had a hard freeze for about three years now and the past winter and fall were unusual in that we have received a lot of rain. Things are growing and flowering like crazy. Most of the flowering plants will lose their flowers during a freeze, but here---no hard freezes.

I am seeing lots of Monarchs, Fitillaries, Sulfurs and Zebra Longwings. I am now seeing Pipevine Swallowtails every day and Giants, Eastern Blacks and Palamedes every other day or perhaps more often if I get to spend time in the garden. For some reason I'm not seeing hardly any Polydamas and very few Skippers. I think I've only seen one or two Tigers in the last four or five months. They tend to come later in the season.