looking for crown flower & penta

[hooligal]

aloha all,

A slight change to my original request:

If you have any penta or crown flower cuttings (left over from pruning), we'd love to take them off your hands. We're still on the hunt for one gallons at local nurseries, but we're trying to start cuttings too as an inexpensive backup/long term plan.

We (now) have a hoard of Monarch Butterfly caterpillars and the adults are hatching out every few days. Turns out that the cuttings we brought in for food had eggs on them that hatched. Start with 3, end up with 20. LOL.

FWIW, we're not doing this for profit... we're doing because we love it and to help the falling monarch population. Only 2% of eggs laid survive to adulthood in the wild, but proper captive-rearing ups their chances immensely...so far we're at 80%. We release our adults a few days after they hatch, so we're not keeping them as pets.

Also, if you ever find a monarch with a torn or broken wing, give me a call. We can repair the wing & get the monarch back in the air.

quote:

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I'm looking for a 1 gallon crown flower plants. They don't need to be in bloom, so long as they have lots of healthy leaves. Anyone know a nursery that carries it?

We're raising a few monarch butterfly caterpillars & I forgot that they eat like fiends! I'd love to have their food on-site instead of going down the road for cuttings every day.

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[JerryCarr]

Bear and I got our crown flower plant at WalMart, of all places. We were on the way out the back checkout when we spotted them. They can also be occasionally found at the Makuu Market. I would call Rozette's in HPP to see if they have or can get one.

Have you tried rooting any of those cuttings you have been getting? That would take some time, of course, but would be free. Depending on how many of the voracious caterpillars you have, a small potted one gallon starter plant might not last long. You might want to plant one and let it grow while continuing to feed them off cuttings until it is bigger. Fortunately they grow fairly fast.

We have clouds of monarchs around here, and the caterpillars keep our crown flower bush looking ragged. There is some kind of balance, though, because they never seem to lay enough eggs to kill the thing and it always bounces back.

Cheers,
Jerry