Hi Vince.
We only have a couple of dozen plants left which aren’t the greatest. Most have only half foilage. I see on Facebook there are still about 20 people selling them though.
Hope you can find some.
Hi Gazza
your last post was in Dec
Do you have plants for about 5-6 caterpillars as just had 12 hatch which is a few too many? Call/txt me 0211533460
Cheers
Vince
From memory, Monarchs love purple flowers especially (think Liatris spicata, Echinacea purpurea) but they will browse most anything with a corona full of nectar.
Hi Gazza
There are lots of nectar plants around blooming now. You can get a good idea from the lists in a couple of places on our website, just search on NECTAR in the search box.
A lot depends on what you want, e.g. tall/bedding, annual/perennial, shade/full sun and where you are located – different climatic regions and also microclimates.
Hope that helps!
Another update…. We now have over 200 eggs and 30 cats. This last week has seen the Monachs come out and hopefully by the end of this weekend I’m expecting the above numbers to double. I have transferred plants to the butterfly house and soon hope to see the transformations begin.
Question: what’s the best foods to use for when the butterflies emerge.
Just an update: The last couple of days have bought the Monachs. We now have over 30 eggs and 5 cats. At last 😀. The plan now is to build an encloser to keep them in and hopefully start the breeding.
Gazza I’m in Christchurch and have heaps of eggs, let me. know if you want some eggs or caterpillars or want to bring a potted plant around for them to lay eggs on, I guess releasing nearly 200 butterflies so far they are coming back.
My own personal way of doing this is to take a takeaway food container and line it with a slightly damp plain paper tissue and I put the eggs on to the tissue with one leaf Just one leaf as each day they will begin to dry out As the caterpillars hatch they will crawl to the leaf and then you can transfer them easily. Each day I take that leaf ( with caterpillars ) out and put it on the top of a swan plant and put another leaf into the container
hi there. Unfortunately its not as easy as taking eggs and attaching them to a plant .. sorry. Jacqui is way better qualified than me to comment on raising caterpillars from eggs .. my understanding is they need to be kept on a damp tissue or the like till they hatch and then very carefully transferred to a fresh leaf. they are incredibly tiny.
If you are still interested after you get the details i’ll be happy to send you some when I have them which will probably be a few weeks away.
That would be great thanks.
How do we arrange this and also the best way to attach the eggs to plants.
I’m in Wellington and expect to be inundated with eggs soon … I’m currently hosting about 80 monstrous caterpillars that just won’t stop eating lol. But when they do and they pupate and eclose it will be all on. Do you want some eggs at some stage? I hate culling them.
Some of the people who use the forum do not do Facebook… so this is the notice as on Facebook:
Giant Swan plants, ready for sale, $5 each. Please txt 0272605838.
Most sizes between 30cm – 50cm and growing fast. FIFS.
What does FIFS mean?
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