I have a lot of rabbits around this year. As far as I know the mom kicks them out really fast. Since he is eating your flowers he is probably old enough to be on its own.

Thank you, Iris, for this helpful information. Our property is fenced but this little one is so small, he obviously managed to slip through. We put out plates of rabbit food but it doesn't look like he's eaten any. Either he's moved on or prefers fresh greens! :-) Another situation of nature I must learn to accept .... just have to wish him well and hope for the best.

Mary

I'm new to the site but have been looking at all your comments and posts about monarchs and your Dutcmans pipevine. I live in Hope, Hempstead County. I have raised from egg to release 185 monarchs this spring! I am so excited! Yesterday I went for a drive down some of my favorite dirt roads to see what vines and wildflowers I could identify. I found pipevine! I'm so excited! I have looked for years to find it! This is the first time I've found it in bloom to be able to identify. I was able to dig up some little sprout ups and to pull down a big seed pod. Do you know if I need to put the seed in the refrigerator for a time after the pod dries out before I plant any of them?

yest

First, welcome to the forum and a big congrats for your wonderful success with the Monarch eggs! You've done an amazing job! Thank you for helping boost the numbers of 1st generation Monarchs.

And congrats on locating a native pipevine. If possible, storing your native seed in a dry, cool, airtight environment is something I would recommend. I've read the cooler temps help maintain viability. However, storing your dry seed in the fridge would not provide the cold moist stratification this seed will require prior to germination. This would be a different process.

I winter sowed some woolly pipevine seed one year and had very good success. If you're not familiar with that process, there is a Winter Sowing forum here on Houzz. I hope your transplants take hold as that will give you a year's head start on growth. Please keep us updated on how they do.

Mary

I'm assuming I need to let the seed pod dry naturally before I do anything else?After looking over the vine I had brought home and put in water until today I found baby caterpillar and some eggs. Excited to watch them. Thanks for your help!

You are most welcome. A big 'Congrats' on the little cats and eggs. Be sure you remember where that pipevine is located because those tiny cats will eat for a long time! :-) I believe they can pack away as much or more leaf volume than the Monarch cats plus they take longer to mature and reach the chrysalis stage. Keeping them fed takes a lot of leaves (or pieces of pipevine vines). If you have to travel some distance to clip pipevine, maybe, once the cats begin to grow and require more frequent feedings, you could take a container of fresh water to the pipevine site and cut down sections of vine to bring home. I wish I could tell you about how long a section of vine could be maintained in water (or perhaps in a plastic bag in fridge crisper), but don't know. Maybe someone else might know and advise.

And, yes, you will need to allow your seed pod to dry completely before storing it.

Good luck and please keep us updated.

Mary

What a sweet photo, Iris. Thank you for thinking of me. This little guy looks about the same size as the one here. I saw him again last evening, just at dusk. He ventured out in the bed near the GH. I wonder if he is living under the porch of the GH? It has openings where something could get under it and I suspect it is quite cool under there during the heat of the day. I put food out again and last evening, I heard a noise, as if he had taken something from one of the food dishes. We had a terrible storm during the night and the food containers were all full of mush and water this morning so don't know if he actually ate from them. Put out a fresh food container and water for him and removed the soaked dishes. Maybe I'll see him again tonight if he didn't wash away during the storm. :-)

Mary

I actually brought home a lot of the vine and have it in water and it's doing great! Most of the eggs have hatched already. The location of the vine is just a few miles down the road and easy to get to so the cats should do great. There was a seed pod already dried and split just out of my reach when I found the vine. Even with my long hoe I couldn't get it.. but I did get three big mature ones on the vine that I pulled down. I'm enjoying the cats and you are right... they sure can eat! I'm almost finished making a DIY tall habitat to put them in where it will hold a long piece of pipevine. Thanks for your input!!

Regina, it's wonderful the little cats will be protected. Here, the wasps carry off a lot of the little cats when they're left outside. I'm so glad you found native pipevine and have a chance to raise these beautiful butterflies. And thanks for letting us know the vines will last a while in water. I don't bring in vine but do clip individual leaves and keep them in the floral picks when feeding the cats. They have worked out great, much easier than other methods I've used in the past. Toward the end, for about 20 pipevine cats, I was needing many big leaves per day to keep them fed. Today, I have only one cat left wandering about. Maybe five have completed their chrysalis and the rest are in their slings! :-) Good luck and please let us know how the little cats do.

Mary

Yesterday, while walking around the garden, the little baby cottontail actually came out into the garden and ventured up to within about 2 feet of my foot. I had watched him as he came around the corner of the GH and so stood perfectly still, trying not to startle him. I was amazed he would come that close to me. All of a sudden, he turned and ran like the wind back around the corner of the GH. But, surprise .... he then zoomed right back out and toward me again. He stopped under the tropical milkweed, turned around and flew back around the GH again. He did this once more before he stopped. It was like a toddler having a great time playing and entertaining himself. From the deck, I have watched him in the back corner of my neighbor's property, moving about and nibbling on plants. Such a tiny little thing. I fear for his safety but have to be prepared to accept whatever happens. I think he did eat some of the rabbit food I put in a dish under the GH porch. Maybe that will keep him from venturing out so much. The hawks hunt daily. I hope they don't find him.

Mary

That is so cute. I am mad at them often enough for eating my plants, but they are adorable. I am more worried the snakes will get the little ones. One got into the bat house last summer, and the bats are probably not much smaller then the rabbits are right now.

At our last house, we had a rabbit that took up residence in our back yard. The flowers he nibbled came back, so I just bought extras and remember putting out some food for him. He also seemed to clean up under our birdfeeder. I wish he could have moved with us.

BTW, I'm pretty ssure it was his momma who came to visit once or twice, but that was the only time we saw her.

you were right, they eat a lot!

Ragina, those healthy fat little cats have only just begun to eat! :-) So happy you're able to raise them. I watched a spider carrying off one of the little tiny Pipevine cats that had recently hatched outside. Many were already missing so I suspect she or a relative had been dining on the hatchlings. I brought in the few remaining so I'm back in the Pipevine Nursery business again. All of the first group are safe in their chrysalides but now I'm back to changing diapers and harvesting leaves again for this little family.

Mary

UPDATE on the baby cottontail. He has now been joined by one of his siblings! I watched two frolic and play early this AM. They will run one way, stop quickly, turn around and run back the way they came, jumping and twisting in the air as they go. They'll stop and sniff a plant, hop along under the plants, stop and wash their face. So tiny and sweet. One is staying under the GH porch. I've watched him come out early in the morning, stretching out his little legs as he wakes up. I place the rabbit food dish under there to keep it dry, plus a water dish and this morning, I put some carrots out on a dish and most of those are already gone. I've never seen an adult, just these tiny little things. The one eats the rabbit food quite readily and has a hearty appetite. I don't know if the other baby also eats from the dish as I only discovered him today. When I first spotted him, he seemed to appear from underneath the deck. Maybe mama Rabbit has a nest under there? It is hard to imagine a mature rabbit choosing my backyard to nest as I have a West Highland White Terrier and my neighbor's little mini doxie has her own little gate in our fence where she can come over whenever she wishes. Of course, neither dog lives in the backyard but they're in and out all day and half the night. The baby rabbits both seem quite content, don't seem too alarmed by my presence and have been quite good about not nibbling the plants now that they have a dish of food. I should try to get a photo of one of them.

Mary

You are correct! They are fat and healthy! Since this is a new caterpillar for me I have no idea how big they will get! They have grown since that picture!

Mary, your rabbits seem so well behaved! There is this one groundcover kind of plant ( I forgot the name, so I will post a picture) that can hardly catch a break. I also planted a bunch of foxtail clover as host plants that get eaten by the rabbits. On the bright side I saw rosy maple moth caterpillars today and spotted a hackberry emperor laying eggs. Would love to see a picture of your rabbits.

Iris, your plant looks like it might be Callirhoe
involucrata - aka Wine Cups
or Purple Poppy Mallow. It is very pretty. Your rabbits probably felt it needed a bit of pruning. :-)

The little rabbits here trimmed up a Orlaya grandiflora plant. It has the lacy foliage, too, much like the mallow. Maybe that type of foliage is especially attractive to wild rabbits! They didn't eat all of my plant (just tidied it up), and now it is putting up buds. I hope they don't return to it. The blooms are big, white lacy looking blooms that resemble Queen Ann's Lace but they grow on plants that are only about 12-14 inches high.

Orlaya grandiflora - aka White Lace or Minoan Lace Plant

We've been having terrible storms here and I've not been outside much the past few days. The bad weather is supposed to move on by tomorrow.

Just now tried to take a photo of one of the babies from the deck. He is eating from his food dish under the edge of the GH. It was at some distance and the camera kept attempting to focus on the fence slats. It isn't a good photo but you can see his bright eye between the leaves, the tips of his ears and his tiny (and long) feet that he has tucked up under his body. His little cotton tail is hidden behind the rock. Once it dries up a bit, I will try to catch him out and about.

I've never had wild rabbits around so not certain what to expect. They are better behaved since I began putting food out for them. :-) I've been feeding them carrots, too, and they like those. They still nibble a bit on certain things but nothing like before. For some reason, they don't like the white veined dutchmen's pipevine that hangs over the edge of the raised bed. Each morning I find where they've clipped off the ends of the vines. They don't eat them, just clip them and leave them where they drop. I've been bringing the clippings in and keeping them in water until they're needed to feed the second group of pipevine cats I'm raising. At least the clippings aren't going to waste. :-) His food dish is a plastic sandwich container so you can see how tiny he is. Such a a sweet little guy. When he runs up and down the garden path playing, he will spring really high, throw his body sideways and kick his little back feet out. Such innocent joy.

... Mary

Baby Cottontail Rabbit - click on photo to enlarge

This is a nice looking plant. Be careful this rabbit isn't calling all his relatives over. I have always been feeding birds. For the last 3 years I have 3 of these reed looking finch feeders filled with sunflower chips. Now there are at least 50 of them at any given time. Looked really cute when they were waiting in a Cherry before it leafed out. Luckily the zinnias, coreopsis and evening primrose are flowering for some natural food. It's getting expensive. I have not seen a single house sparrow anymore since Winter. Guess that's good. My husband always says it sounds like a pet shop in the front yard.

Here is a better photo of this little scamp. I am so afraid for him. He doesn't even seem to be too concerned with me towering near him. He just doesn't seem to know he should be afraid.

He was tasting a plant and I said something to him. He hopped out into the middle of this bed where there were no plants, scratched up the soil (still damp from all the rain) and laid down and wiggled around, like a chicken taking a dust bath! Good gracious, mama rabbit didn't teach him much about danger.

Iris, how wonderful you have the birds near your home where you can enjoy them. They are such a joy to have around. I used to feed them but a woods rat began raiding the feeders so I had to quit putting out seed. I really miss seeing the birds at the deck. My favorite here are the little Carolina Wrens. They are much like the Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies in that they tend to stick around their birth area. Through the years, they've nested in a bucket in the GH and in an abandoned flower pot under the deck. Such sweet little things who sing such beautiful songs. Papa wren wakes me up many mornings with his beautiful singing. Hard to realize all that music is coming from those tiny little bodies.

I am trying a couple of new to me native plants this year, a small perennial sunflower that blooms all summer and is supposed to produce nutritious seed heads and a small shade plant, pigeon berry, that grows little red berries the birds reportedly enjoy. What is good in one area of the country isn't always accepted in a different locality but it will be fun to see if these plants grow here and, if so, whether the birds will make use of them.

Mary

Just wondering how your rabbits are doing. Mine are doing too well. Saw 5 grown ups at once today. They are eating everything. The foxtail clover I planted as host plant is totally gone. The deer are out in full force too though. I still can't get used to the weird hissing sound they make when I go out after dark. To top it off, we had a donkey/ mule eat the zinnias last week.

Unfortunately, if you continue to feed the rabbits, that will stimulate their bodies to produce record numbers of babies. If those babies also find plenty of food, then they will mature quickly and also produce huge litters. The population will explode until it outgrows the food supply. You might be lucky enough to attract predators, such as foxes and hawks, who will help keep the numbers more reasonable. But, the predators will not multiply fast enough to prevent the rabbits from targeting your plants, once you cannot afford to feed them all rabbit pellets. Better to grow plants they won't eat, or use rabbit fencing to keep them out. I also find the rabbits adorable, but I do reach a point where the damage they do surpasses my ability to adore them. They chewed up my entire crop of strawberries this year. I didn't see a single ripe berry. Next spring I will introduce rabbit fencing and bird netting.

Martha

I am not feeding the rabbits on purpose. But I planted the foxtail clover, frog fruit, Parsley and so on as hostplants for the butterflies. And of course they also eat a bunch of the nectar plants. There are a lot, so fencing them in isn't working. I do have cages around little trees because of the deer ( they really love Sassafras). With the size of the rabbits I saw yesterday I doubt even the big rat snake we have around will help. Didn't see a coyote this year yet. The rabbits are adorable, but I do like the balance. It usually evens itself out. Still frustrating if you have new plants you probably won't see flower.

Sorry, Iris. My warning about the population explosion was for Mary. I wanted her to know that, even if providing food for the bunnies keeps them from eating your plants in the short run, their offspring will become more of a challenge as they multiply. Better to let nature take it's course and keep plants protected, or grow plants they won't eat. But, that would limit what you have to offer the butterflies.

Martha

Feeding the adorable bunnies will also create the kind of movement and activity that will attract the predators. Think of it as a smorgasbord.....for the hawks.