It’s time for the weekly world garden tour. My South Florida garden has a wealth of butterflies and tropical flowers loving the heat and humidity more than I do. I let some native passionflower vine (larval host plant for butterflies) ramble through a mixture of flowering nectar plants and I have some astounding butterfly action going on in the front garden. Pairs of Gulf fritillary butterflies circle each other and then land on the passionvine where the ladies lay eggs. Caterpillars from both species of butterflies (Gulf fritillary and Zebra Longwing) that host on the vine are currently in residence. The caterpillars moved off the vines and now there are chrysalis hanging on the front porch. I am watching day by day hoping to see new butterflies emerge.
The Gulf fritillary looking for nectar.
Zebra Longwing doing the same thing.
Gulf fritillary caterpillars on the passionvine. The passionvine is Florida native Passiflora suberosa. It is not a particularly attractive vine and bears small flowers and blueberry sized fruit. I did not plant this, it came up from the garden gods and I let it go to ramble through the Dwarf Red Ixora shrubs creating a caterpillar condo with a full service restaurant.
The much less colorful chrysalis of the Gulf fritillary.
And we have to have some tropical flowers and fruit. The flowers today are Lobsterclaw Heliconia (Heliconia rostrata)
Fruit of the week – Papaya. This is the Papaya tree started from seed last fall. I planted the seedlings in the garden in May. They are almost three feet tall now and looking a little spindly. I have read it is possible to have fruit in nine months. At this point, the trees won’t be able to support it.
That is all from sultry South Florida this Saturday. To enjoy the world garden tour visit Jim at http://gardenruminations.co.uk
Happy Gardening!!
The Shrub Queen 
lovely butterflies and flowers
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At least the butterflies can enjoy your hot Florida days. Beautiful photos.
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Thanks, Susie. It is a good butterfly year for whatever reason.
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Lovely photos of butterflies and caterpillars that remind me of what I had seen in the French West Indies. I lost my last papaya trees which unfortunately rotted at the end of winter. You really have to stop the watering from November to March around here, which completely stops the growth, and they have trouble taking off again…
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Thanks, Fred they are tropical butterflies. Papaya trees live for a few years here. I am not sure why.
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How cool to have a butterfly hatching to look forward to! I’d say they are camouflaged to look like bird poop?
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I hope I see it. There are a lot of butterfly things camouflaged like that, one a caterpillar that hosts on citrus. Giant swallowtail I think.
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Amazing butterflies, it’s so good of you to grow host plants too! 😘🌸💞🦋🦋
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I love the idea of a full butterfly condo and all you can eat restaurant. Wonderful photos.
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What a lovely collection of butterflies! Lucky you!
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The vine that just appeared was obviously meant to be…good eye to spot and identify the chrysalis!
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I love your Lobster Claw. We have to bring them in for the winter.
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So, only the vine is Passiflora suberosa, but he foliage is Ixora? That was confusing. I was looking for some sort of Passiflora. I happened to be trying to procure the straight species of Passiflora incarnata earlier. (It is actually available online.) Papaya were unusually productive in Los Angeles this year. I can not remember seeing so many with so many big fruit all at the same time. The foliage was quite shabby. The goofy tall trunks with big fruits and a few small leaves all over the neighborhood looked like zombie Muppets.
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Zombie muppets! I love it. The vine the caterpillar is on is the passiflora, they have eaten most of the leaves. This is much smaller than the straight species, foliage and flowers. If I find some I will take a picture.
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I have seen it only in pictures. It is not so impressive. Passion flower is somewhat popular as an ornamental here, but no one seems to be aware that some cultivars can make fruit. The showiest either do not produce fruit, or produce fruit of inferior quality. Strangely, long before the fruit became popular again in recent history, it was grown on small orchards in Beverly Hills in the Los Angeles region. Vines grew from roots after homes were built where the orchards had been. Such vines are so difficult to kill, and are so efficient at generating new roots as they age, that a few were still growing among home gardens while Brent and I were in school. One grew on the chimney at his parents house, and might still be there. Nowadays though it is impossible to distinguish between any surviving remnants of the old orchards and ornamental cultivars that were intentionally planted.
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Oh, that is interesting. I did grow some for fruit for a while. It is sort of a novelty thing and a summer drought killed the plant. A lot of people complain about it coming up everywhere.
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Drought killed it?! Goodness! Not much kills it. The specimen at Brent’s parent’s home got no irrigation.
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I was surprised as well and somewhat relieved as it would get out of hand easily.
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Well, yes, perhaps that is fortunate. Brent had tried to kill the specimen at his parent’s home for several years before finally accepting it as a permanent component of the garden.
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I don’t think any of our native butterflies have caterpillars that feed on a common garden plant, so we lure them in with flowers and nectar but provide little or nothing for their caterpillars. No full service restaurant here.
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Butterflies fascinate me. I have a good location to watch them. There are a lot of them in the garden that host on Dutchman’s Pipe and I have no clue where they eat!
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Beautiful butterflies Amelia, and how lovely to have the caterpillars and then chrysalis to watch too. Your Papaya tree is really sweet. Has it flowered yet?
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Thanks, Cathy. I missed the chrysalis opening. They flew the coop this morning. The papaya hasn’t flowered yet. I seem to recall having them in winter, so we shall see.
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