Happy Spring! Beautiful! The ladies don’t get enough credit in my opinion. Felt like Spring today.

What a lovely picture! That looks like a fruit tree. What kind? Apple?

No, the Painted Ladies are not as showy as some butterflies, so not as popular. I love that they come in groups. At my old house, I had a swale where they would come out as soon as the frogfruit bloomed to feed. It's one of their favorite nectar plants, I suppose. I used to walk through them just to see them ride up all around me.

It’s a pear. A really scraggly looking tree, but still a lot of fruit. I had to thin out the frogfruit last week. It was going for world domination.

LOL! Yes, frogfruit will do that if left unchecked. What kind of pear is that? I want a Kieffer pear so badly! We had one when i was small, and I had one at my house in Gilbert when I lived there. They make the best pear preserves. I hear they will grow here, so I may try to find one, although damned if I know where I would put it! LOL They really are scraggly looking trees, but boy, are those pears good.

I don’t really know what kind of pears they are. But they taste great fresh or in the compot my father in law uses them for. My peach tree’s flowers mostly froze about a week ago, so the pear, a plum and some cherry are really busy with the critters. Other than some weeds in the lawn not much else flowering. Seems a slow start this year. I had the first Monarch eggs March 30 last year. No milkweed showing yet.

A bit late to the party, but this cloudless sulphur finally found my cassia plant. She spent a non-stop 1/2 hour one day, laying eggs.

The plant is absolutely bespeckled. This is Day 2, as the eggs are turning a beautiful orange shade (yes, that's her in the background, still at it!):

And yesterday, she found a buddy. They were doing courtship dances all day long, twirling circles in the air -- so very cool.

Cool! I planted a cassia just for the sulphurs, but last year, the larvae all got eaten before they could mature. I still love the plant, though, so I'll keep it. My sulphurs seem to like to lay their eggs in the fall, just as the Cassia bicapsularis is blooming.

Javi, I hope you have enough of the cassia!

That is definitely a concern, Iris! This is the little plant I purchased from the local butterfly center last October, and it's really pushing out new growth very nicely. Given it'll mature at 4-8', and it's only 1' tall now (but ~ 2' wide!), I guess it's still pretty shrimpy. I'd guess the lizards and wasps will help balance things out.

I have the Candlestick plant for the Sulphurs. I'm trying to grow the Hollyhocks for the Painted Ladys now. I do have a lot of milkweed for the Monarchs and Queen, passionvines for the passionvine butterflies. The desert rose for the oleander moth, and fennel and dill for the Black Swallowtail. I did lose my Dutchman's Pipe with the Hurricane, when a big Choquette avocado tree fell on it. I have to get another one.

Javi, what kind of cassia is that? I hope I get eggs on the sicklepod. I am growing a bunch of new, native legume host plants. Is the popcorn cassia better at attracting butterflies than the sicklepod?

Jay: The one shown was labelled as Flowery Senna (Cassia splendida -- purchased last fall from the local butterfly center). I'll also plant a couple of the popcorn cassia from seeds Rhonda sent me. Sorry -- cannot answer your question about how the two compare. This will be my first time with cassias at all.

ETA: Need seeds? :)

ETA Wednesday!

What plant is in your picture above?

Jay, I am getting way more caterpillars on the sicklepot than the Popcorn cassia. Maybe because the leaves are not as stiff?

We have sulphur cats!!!

I saw a lady this morning. Not sure what kind, it fluttered by so fast. I am not too far behind with caterpillars on Senna. Mine is not ready for this yet.

Great pic! Thanks Iris, that's what I wanted to hear!

sultry: I don't dare even brush past one of these (or swallowtail cats) any more -- I can handle a lot of odors, but the scent these give off is just awful to me. what a beautiful 'bad boy' though! What type of citrus? I had several Giants finally eclose last year, but I notice with my view the neighbors' giant grapefruit and orange trees nearby: I wonder if the butterflies prefer the larger trees to my little potted Blood Moro. A Giant fluttered around a couple of weeks ago, but headed for another yard. :(

Iris: My newly germinated popcorn cassias aren't much larger than your sprout. With the abundance of sulphurs lately, I'm sure I'll be able to take a similar pic. May need to likewise plop my hole-y liter bottle cages over them for a while, so the sulphurs can concentrate on the larger cassia for now.

I used to think they stunk bad but over the years, I kinda perversly, like the scent lol !! Is that wrong? haha I guess there are worse odors in life.

It is a Blood Orange but they get on all my citrus, Buddah's Hand, grapefruit, Lemons they dont care. The only one they dont bother is the Red Fingerlime, probably because its so, so thorny.

I like the scent of the black swallowtail 'stinkers' Sultry! Your mind associates the smells to something beautiful so the smell evokes something beautiful, subconsciously. Maybe a plain old little wafer ash might attract them javi. I like the smell of Autumn sage too, even though some compare it to camel urine lol.

lol@ camel urine!!

I always associate the smell of those canned cherry air fresheners for your car with skunk scent. When our kids were little we used to take this drive frm NW Nebraska to Minnesota in the summer. We always knew when we hit S. Dakota because the highway had so many dead skunks. You could smell it in the car. The kids would start hollering and break out the canned cherry air freshener (the strongest one we could find at that time) lol. So now when I smell it, my brain thinks Skunk!

I kind of like skunk smell too lol. I think I prefer it over glade. I had this indoor Hoya rope plant years ago, and when it bloomed it had the most overpowering glade smell, especially at night. I had to cut the bloom off, I couldn't take it lol. I think the Ipomoea moon flowers smell like clean lemons with a hint of glade. Someone had some weed that smelled just like swallowtail cats and frass lol!

I hope my Hoyas dont smell like glade lol. I just started up with Hoyas. So far I just have two: kerri variegated, and the variegated carnosa.

I think the Ipomea smells like some kind of pretty shampoo. I try to grow it every year. Funny about the swallowtail cat smelling weeds lol.

The Hoya kerri is cool. Now that is one heart shaped leaf! I started Dregea sinensis and Oxypetalum from seeds. The Dregea is similar to Hoyas and is supposed to be fragrant.

I had to look up Dregea sinensis lol. The flowers do look like Hoyas. Its pretty cool.

I am impressed you started Oxypetalum from seed! Do they ake a long time to flower?

I have several epi cactus but lost most of the tags for them thanks to the dumb chickens, so I need to re-label them when they bloom. I dont have the reg white Oxypetalum. I think I would get a cutting because I am too impatient as it took forever for my other epies to bloom from cuttings :p

Yes, the Kerri hoya is the heart shaped one. I've always wanted to try it. I got a small multi branched cutting and it is rooting well. I also got some monkeytail cactus cuttings at the same time and they are finally rooting.

Sultry, I thought the Oxypetalum would be hard from seed, and I've thought that for years, but they are easy. I used mycorrhizal fungi in the potting soil and everything grew like crazy. I'm freaking out because there's about another month before we can put out tender plants and these Oxypetalum under the lights already have flower buds and are ready to bloom. I here the Monarchs don't lay eggs on them but I just wanted a beautiful turquiose milkweed vine in a pot. I have lots of goodies for the Monarchs too.

Oxypetalum coerulea with flower buds.m

Calotropis procera

Bottom left, Tithonia, bottom right Dregea sinensis.

Foreground Gomphocarpus, background Asclepias curassavica.

Sultry, lucky you. I've heard of heart shaped leaves, but this Hoya kerri takes the cake! Nice find!

Haha when you said, Oxypetalum, I assumed you were talking about Epiphyllum oxypetalum! lol. Now I see you meant the Oxypetalum coerulea ! So I had to look that one up!

Gosh all your plants are looking awesome. You are going to have a jungle for all the butterflies.

Your Hoya kerri is very nice and healthy looking. Much larger than mine. Has yours flowered yet? Do they grow slow or fast?

I got a pretty hanging pot for mine but my kerri is still too small for it.

Jay, can you tell me where you got seeds for the Oxypetalum coerulea? I just looked it up and it's beautiful. I got seeds on Ebay for the reddish one, but this one is so pretty. I saw that Ebay has some seeds, but they come from China, they usually take a while before they get here. Amazon has some, but they are expensive on there.

Ily68, I don't actually remember because I collected so many seeds this year it was impossible to keep track. I think they either came from a seller on etsy or ebay. They sent me the pink flowered Oxypetalum solanoides as a bonus. Where do you live? I have extra vines I don't know what to do with lol.

Sultry, lol, I took that Hoya pic off the internet. I wish I had one of those. I was just saying lucky you!

Thank you, I just sent you a message with my information. That other one they sent you is also very pretty. I don't have any Hoya. Let me know if you need anything for me to send you. Thanks again,

Jay 6a Chicago, Hi, just to let you know, that I received the plants today. Thank you very much for sending them to me. Let me know if you need for me to send you anything I might have. Thank you again, Ileana