Oh hooray!!!! I have only had Tigers one time before. I suspect that my neighbor's tulip tree is hogging them all... I'm so happy they found my wafer ash! Funny though, I planted a Sweetbay Magnolia for them, and so far they've ignored it.

Congratulations! I usually find them on wild black cherry. Seems in my case they use the sweetbay magnolia for the “last batch” when the other trees start to look a bit ragged.

I've only found one tiger cat on sweetbay magnolia. Their faves seem to be wild black cherry followed by tulip tree.

Sherry

Congrats for the Tiger cats weed30. I just looked it up, and found out I can grow wafer ash here in Illinois. Finding a place to put it is the only problem.

Jay, it doesn't grow very big, at least not here.

Sherry

Jay, just know that it is not a very pretty bush/tree, at least for me. It sends out multiple trunks, is kinda gangly, and really nothing I would plant on purpose if not for the butterflies. But boy, it's worth it just for them!

It's also hard if not impossible to find at nurseries. I ended up buying mine on ebay, and it was a single stem about 1' tall. It took 3 - 4 years before it really had any good growth. But that may have been due to too much shade. Not sure.

I'm in the process of trying to root a cutting for a friend of mine. I have no idea if I'll be successful, but I've read that now is the time of year to try. I'd be happy to add one for you if you'd like. They don't get super big, and you can prune them and they don't care. I know this because a neighbor's tree fell on mine and broke a bunch of branches. It didn't care and shot out some nice new growth. I also see new growth where I've cut small branches to feed my current brood.

I'd be interested in a cutting. I'd let them overwinter first, so they can build up some strength. I'm thinking of getting wild black cherry too. Miss Sherry said they use it more, and it's also a host plant for some other butterflies and moths. I could raise some Cecropia cats. I have rue plants. They're in the same family as wafer ash.

Jay, it may take awhile to get them to root, but I'm starting them today. I'll include some seeds as well - I have a ton of those! Or I could send those now. You can email me your address - weed dot 30 at charter dot net.

Weed, I'll email you. Where are you located?

St. Louis :)

Congrats weed30! The wild black cherry trees I had in Ohio and Williston, Florida were definitely their favorite host plant. I'd love to have one here but our lot is only 1/4 acre and with all the other plants and trees (think 5 varieties of bananas, 4 types of mangoes, grapefruit and peach trees, 2 magnolias, and lots of host vines and nectar plants) we had I definitely wouldn't have room for it.

Wild black cherry/Prunus serotina is the single best host plant for leps there is, if you have room for it - tiger swallowtails, red-spotted purples, cecropia moths, and many more. Seems like they'd come up with a dwarf form for those with small yards!

Sherry

Sherry, I would love to grow a wild black cherry, but I don't have any more room for trees. The east side of my yard is shaded by a big Oak, a big Cottonwood, and a big Blue Spruce. There is also an established Buckthorn and Mulberry. I would love to cut down the Buckthorn and Mulberry, but my health and budget prevent me from doing that. I do get tired of pulling out their numerous bird sown volunteers. I was planning on keeping my Hackberries more like shrubs by cutting them back every year. I was hoping I could do the same thing to a black cherry to keep it small. Sunlught is at a premium in my yard. The sun doesn't hit my garden until around 11 am. I need as much sunlight as I can get to grow all my milkweeds, and all the other host and pollinator plants. Do you think it's ok to treat a wild black cherry that way? Jay

Jay, there is one that has been growing by my porch for years. It really is not supposed to grow there, so I cut it down to the ground every winter, but I don’t use Roundup on the stump. So it comes back every Spring and gets to be an about 2.5 meter shrub every year.

I've never heard of trying to keep a wild black cherry growing in the ground small, Jay. It makes a big tree. You could try growing one in a container, which might lend itself more to continual cutting. than in the ground. My memory may be wrong, but I think the owner of Shady Oak in Florida does that, more to have continuous new growth (attractive to egg laying females) than dwarf the tree. You can probably dig up a little seedling by the road and pot it up yourself or you could order one. It'd be worth a try if you feel like it - I know how your energy is limited, mine is, too.

Sherry

Sherry, in my case I am not trying to keep one small in the ground. I just don’t want to use herbicide. Thought it would give up eventually. I have plenty of big ones around. Just saying it seems possible to have one as a small kind of shrub around at least for a few years. These small, cut back in the winter ones (there are some others coming out of a sweetshrub and stuff, too) are actually looking a lot better than the others.

I haven't seen any growing around me, and I never see any of them coming up around the house. The birds leave a lot of other plants around, mulberries, hackberries,poison ivy, virginia creeper, smilax, nightshade, buckthorns, pokeweed, to name a few ha ha. You are right, you'd think someone would've developed a dwarf cultivar by now. I do know that Oaks and Cottonwoods are both host plants too, so that's a little comforting. I'm planting a lot of new host plants next year so I think I'll put the wild cherry on the back burner for a while. Hey Iris, have you ever found any cats on your little wild cherry?

I considered a wild cherry, but decided against it because of the downsides - messy, self seeding, fast growing huge tree. That just won't work in my yard :(

I read that deerberry (Vaccineum stamineum L.), is a host plant and seems manageable.

I have a book Gardening for the South that lists several types of Malus and Prunus as host plants for tiger swallowtails. May of these make small trees, don't get big like wild cherry. I've found red-spotted purple eggs and cats on Malus angustifolia/southern crabapple, so I'm sure this information is true. Unfortunately, many of these trees in the rose family get diseases than can make them unsightly.

Sherry

I do have a crabapple, and a serviceberry. The crabapple had tents with gypsy moth cats a few years ago. I had a small chokeberry that a Cecropia cat fed on. I was thinking of maybe getting another. Deerberry isn't listed as a host plant in my Audubon Field Guide to North American Butterflies, but some other Vaccinium species are. Maybe I might get a Blueberry and see if something uses it.

I had a dozen blueberry bushes in the country and tigers never used them as host. However, I lived in the woods with SO many other primary host trees, that may be the reason they ignored the blueberries. Of course, the berries were delicious to me, my family, friends and many birds, so planting a blueberry bush is always a good idea. And they don't get diseases!

Sherry

Maybe a blueberry, a chokeberry, and a Viburnum. Viburnums host Spring Azures and Hummingbird Clesrwings. I just absolutely love Blue Butterflies. I'm trying to get host plants for all the Blues that range in my neck of the woods. The Blueberry Sulpher uses blueberries, but it's a western species.