[jules]

Hi, I can help . I am in Onekawa . 026 235 7802

[jules]

Removing the egg casings is vital. All of those in our garden are the imported South African Mantis. I have a friend who has a lovely cluster of natives in her garden, if I ever find one here it will be relocated to her colony as she does not have swan plants.!The egg cases can be in the weirdest of places, generally under the eaves of the house, but I have almost every year found them on the wooden handles of stored tools.

Utterly disheartening watching them predate newly emerged butterflies before they are flight capable. You will often know you have them on your plants as you will find black goop dripped all over the leaves, to locate the mantis responsible, look on the under side of the leaves above.If they are getting your butterflies as they hatch, all that will remain is a pair of wings 🙁

When watering my garden I always try to mist spray under the plants pointing upward, they hide under the leaves but as Jacqui wrote, they come to the top when they get sprayed.

This property has been a plague of them since we moved here and it has taken 4 years to even begin to get them under control.Also remember that though they are territorial, once you remove them from a good food source, others will chose to move to the restaurant so you need to be vigilant.

[jules]

HI, I don’t have spare plants, only tiny seedlings that wont be enough to feed off. email me if you run out and need somewhere to foster on. infiniteink@xtra.co.nz , I have good established plant here that will cope with them

[jules]

Wasps have been bad this year here. I am starting to wonder about the wonderful yellow shoulder ladybugs as well. They came on mass and cleaned up 99% of my aphids, now the egg numbers are dropping.
I am now removing as many eggs as I can on their leaves each day and hatching in containers on moistened handy towels.

[jules]

I have been getting feedback that most of the local stores have swan plant and the size varies. I have a thread running on our local news page to gather interest and encourage people to plant. Good to see a load of interest and being able to get information out. Might have found a few wintering over spots here as well from information being added to the thread

[jules]

In the new sheltered location I have swan plants planted, we have had caterpillars all winter so far. They seam to take longer to grow but are getting there. There are about 6 large ones due to chrysalis in the next few days. I always seam to miss them hatching and flying off though. Glad the mantis population are quiet now !

[jules]

To my surprise I have accidentally grown cuttings. I wasn’t keen on using rooting hormone to grow any just in case it wasn’t good for the wee critters.

I had a bunch of branches indoors for the last of the bulk Caterpillars that were getting predated. I drilled holes in the top of the lid of the container they were in so they couldn’t fall in and drown! Most all of the leaves were devoured but the stalk left in the container has rooted and now has small bud branches. I think these will be perfect to plant out in spring as I doubt they will grow very even fast indoors over winter but are already going to faster to establish than seedlings..

I have just done a load more, using straight branches ( no offshoots) in the hope I will have a great head start next season for another patch ! If you do opt for drilling holes in a lid, make sure you leave enough space to pull them back out when they have rooted !

[jules]

thanks for that. I actually put them on the swan plants this afternoon as 2 males were scrapping with each other and one ripped the others wing with its spiky foot ? Never seen that behavior before lol.

If it looks nasty over night I will go get them lol ! We only had 2 that had wing deformity out of all of the past couple of days , a lot are are a bit smaller than summer ones though. I am in Napier Caz

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153340031433343&set=a.10150512981658343.433991.749913342&type=1&theater

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153340208763343&set=a.84279983342.107607.749913342&type=1&theater

[jules]

How many days is it safe to do this for jacqui? I have 3 hatched yesterday and 2 today so far and another 9 due anytime today !
The weather here is getting pretty blustery and we are due for a lot of rain.

edited to add, yesterdays were sitting outdoors on the swan plants, but I still have one that has not left yet.

[jules]

For those dealing with a plague of mantis 🙁 This is what the egg casings look like. I have been scouting the section as much as possible under4 edges, fences and even the handles of garden tools ! These suckers pretty much wiped out my winter over stocks this year.

[jules]

To my surprise I have just had a Monarch lay on the plants here this morning. I still have 3 late chrysalis to hatch. (Napier).

[jules]

Anyone who has a plan for trapping these predators please let me know. I have now lost all of my larvae to them over the past couple of weeks and have even found them chomping on slower monarchs laying the last of their winter season eggs 🙁 PS: the south African imports apparently do not have the colors on their forelegs.

[jules]

Pruning is going to be a biggy for me this year, our plants are very tall , many over 6 foot, but they are very spindly. I have had most success growing them in groves in rows about 3 deep and 10 or so across. I plant in different areas of the garden and spend many delightful hours removing the caterpillars that have reached a decent size to one grove or the other. I find keeping majority on one grove at a time will strip a lot of foliage but it will recover quickly when you switch groves. It lets the other grove recover.

The tricky bit for me will be when to prune, I have a load of seed head for the first time this year and am plotting on growing as many plants as i can from them and encouraging neighbors have have developed an interest to also plant groves.I don’t want to prune until the seed heads are all matured , perhaps spring is looking like the ideal time.

I might give cloning some cuttings a go and these are my obvious strong plants, many failed in setting up the groves. Survival of the fittest I guess.

Oh and I am in Napier if anyone is wondering about growing conditions.

[jules]

I have often wondered the same as often I can easily capture raised butterflies and have had the odd one even land on me, yet with someone else in the yard they take off if approached. I am often hands on with my caterpillars as I need to move them from grove to grove of swan plants to keep a healthy food supply.

Might just be wishful thinking.

[jules]

would love to have photos or avatars. I was just looking at the profile section and can’t add one. The geometric images are confusing and don’t identify members easily 🙂

[jules]

how exciting is that. Going to research nettle. It is a teeny garden here and I am picking it is perhaps a prickly plant. But I am trying to grow creatively in vertical spaces so I am bound to find a way to do so.

Very exciting as I have been seeing these guys for a few weeks now. There must be something close by they are liking

[jules]

Napier here. Our street is alive with Monarchs. I have 2 good stands of swan plant, the main one is a grove of about 2 dozen plants. I just get goosebumps going outdoors and seeing them all flying about. Loads of different stages happening with the caterpillars as well.

They seam to love to leave the swan plants and climb to cocoon in a very tall conifer beside the main planting . Most of the last lot have hatched but if they do it again this time I will take pics, It looks like a monarch Christmas tree lol.

[jules]

Thanks Jacqui,

 

I am in Napier, Hawkes Bay. Loads to learn and I am loving it. I guess I have just never noticed before with as much detail as I am now. The ones in the past few day that have been here laying really are pretty battered, I guess the figure there is not much chance of seeing the winter out and may as well lay .

[jules]

[jules]

Not at all. I just popped her in a mesh tent with a swan plant to complete laying, the when the wind settles out there again I will pop her back outdoors. Kinda being hopeful she was just a bit tired after all her efforts lol.Just didn’t want the cat to spot her and start nibbling wings as she just flutters now, not flies .

When I first caught and tagged her she was sitting on the plants, in hindsight I should have waited before entering the tag details. I guess the main question is do I notify you via email if /when she dies as he tag details have already been sent to you.

[jules]

YES !! She has joined and requested tags. So exciting. With the extra plants on my section I have been able to step up tagging as well. What a wonderful way to spend a few minutes each time in the garden. Watching the monarchs as you release them to either fly off or circle and come back to lay.

 

If more people grew swan plants , there would be less need for therapy lol

[jules]

Still shaking, still excited. Finally tagged my first Monarch. My plants were so decimated that I went to the warehouse over the weekend and purchased 5 more !! They are just sitting in the garden in pots and it is working !! Yippee.

 

By the way, if you need more plants, the ones I purchased scanned up at 99c each !

[jules]

Interesting read.

This is my first swan plant and Monarch season, just to add more info the the research, my plants have vast spearmint plants around them, chives just inches from the base of  a couple of plants and I often throw banana peal in the herb/swan plant garden. Sadly Aphids were a plague here too !

I have since made up a spray  bottle of boiled water, dish wash detergent (tablespoon-ish) few mils of any cooking oil and I steep granulated garlic in boiling water , draining a couple of teaspoons of the liquid.

I spray direct on to the aphids ( and anything else in the garden ) and repeat every week or so. The numbers lessen dramatically or disappear all together.

I also sprinkle dried granulated garlic ( from bin Inn) around our vegie garden and any trouble spots, each time you water or it rains the odor of the garlic releases and sorts out the bugs. I reapply every couple of months.

[jules]

thanks for that. I am trying to catch one and keep it alive, but they are really quick when you go after them. Someone else via facebook has suggested it could also be some type of weevil ? I just wish there weren’t so many of them 🙁

[jules]

Got him !!

http://tinyurl.com/crwme8g

So many more being killed over night. I am bringing the larger ones in doors and now feeding them on pumpkin and fresh milkweed leaves. they seam happy with both. Fingers crossed

 

 

[Author]

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