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I don't think the newspapers ever came out to see the butterflies. It was only several hundred at a time across the upper highway between Waimea and Kailua-Kona. But there were a flock of butterflies every couple of miles so overall there was a huge amount of them. They were the white cabbage butterflies, a rather common butterfly. That was only early one summer and they haven't been back since, probably since there hasn't been as severe of a drought since then to get the food growing all at the same time so the caterpillars all mature at the same time.
Yes, that's it. Small White Cabbage Butterflies are a nuisance to gardeners and cabbage farmers, but they don't typically mass like that except under very unusual weather conditions.
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Are white egrets new on Maui? We've had them around for quite some time along with bufos. The last big bufo toad I've seen was several years ago. They used to show up all the time and there'd always seem to be one squished on the road somewhere.
Egrets were deliberately introduced by ranchers in 1959, as a "complementary species" which does not compete with endemic species for ecological niche. They eat a lot of bugs, frogs, toads.
And the bufos were deliberately introduced in the late 1800s to "hopefully" control insects in the cane fields. Slight miscalculation there.
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The newest gardening venture is mulberry trees. Someone gave me some cuttings so they were stuck in the garden to see if they will sprout. They have nice berries, no stickers, might make a nice hedge if they are trimmed into a hedge shape and the leaves can be fed to bunnies as bunny food.
I'm not a fan. The leaves can be fed to silk worms too, but the berries are very messy, especially after having been processed through the digestive system of a bird and deposited on one's car, or almost anything else.
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There are a lot of things in Hawaii that are "planted" by just sticking a bit of a branch in the ground.
Years later, I'm still knocked out by how much this is true. I have dozens of different things growing... hibiscus, mountain apple, plumeria, bamboo, orchids, "phillipine spinach," poinsettia... all started by poking a little bit of a branch in the ground.
Hmm, how much of a problem do you think the mulberry would be? We get a lot of rain, but we don't want polka-dotted cars, either, I suppose. Hmm, well, painting the cars purple probably isn't the right answer, either, although it would be fun.
I've been reading that up to 40% of a rabbit's diet can be replaced with mulberry leaves and it would be nice to be more sustainable with the rabbit rations.
Do you know of anyone with silk worms? Growing silk might be a fun experiment. I've got a bit of "Sea Island" cotton started, that's supposed to make white cotton bolls. Long stapled cotton that comes easily off the seed and is supposed to be a high quality cotton. We will see, although it's gonna be awhile since the cotton plants are only 2" tall at the moment.
Well, if Bufos were introduced in the 1800's and they are still around, they are probably still out there, then. It just seems like there are a lot less of them than there used to be. I haven't been tracking the cattle birds, although generally when one sees cows, there is a white bird sitting on them.
I've never managed to get bamboo to grow from a cutting, but the rest of them have worked. Orchids are usually a bit of a plant division, though. They start out with roots on them, don't they?
Do you know of anyone with silk worms? Growing silk might be a fun experiment.
I've heard of people raising silk worms and creating silk thread as a hobby, or as a classroom project, but I've never seen it. It's little known today, but silk production was a popular cottage industry in Connecticut for 200 years, until a mulberry blight in 1844 ended it.
The big problem with silk production is that it is very labor intensive, bringing fresh leaves to the larvae daily, then unrolling the mile-long filament and combining it with others to make a thread.
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I've never managed to get bamboo to grow from a cutting, but the rest of them have worked.
I don't know if they all do this, but I've gotten a couple of bamboos to take that way, using freshly cut segments from near the base. Transplanting corms is obviously a better way.
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Orchids are usually a bit of a plant division, though. They start out with roots on them, don't they?
I need to learn more about orchids, because there are different kinds, with different methods of propagation. The ones i get with roots I usually attach to the side of a hapu'u fern. But some are like little bamboos, including several wild orchids you see by the side of road all over Puna. Professional growers can get a number of cuttings from one stem by cutting them just below each node, and planting them in moss or ground up tree fern trunk or other grow media. I just cut some and planted them in dirt with a light covering. They stayed moist naturally, which seems to be the secret.
Mulberry trees can be very messy, they can drop a lot of fruit at one time. If you leave any fruit on the ground, the berries will attract roaches and you won't want to go out at night until you've cleaned up every last berry.
Last edited by Fredesch; 04-02-2013 at 08:33 PM..
Reason: Typo
Maybe the roaches in the house will migrate out to the mulberries, do you think? One can hope! There should be a lot of geckos and chameleons in the mulberry bushes, too, then. The cat will like that, although the wretched beast also likes catching cockaroaches and leaving half of them on our slippers.
Can silkworms be kept on mulberry bushes and just let them eat the leaves there? Catch them when they make their cocoon? They'd be easy to catch, then. Are there any silkworms around here?
Can silkworms be kept on mulberry bushes and just let them eat the leaves there? Catch them when they make their cocoon? They'd be easy to catch, then. Are there any silkworms around here?
Dunno. This gal seems to have as good a handle on it, and she says she heard that silkworms can't legally be shipped in due to a quarantine. BUT she also heard that they could be purchased in Honolulu for chameleon food. Silkworm Farming on Hawaii
On the other hand, shipping any kind of live insect to Hawai'i requires a special permit, so maybe the mainland breeders just don't want to bother. Or maybe you can get them at that local pet store in Hilo. I just don't know.
Hmm, they also mentioned something about silkworms being sold at Stacey's Pets. I know they sell the smaller mealie worms, didn't know they also sold silkworms. Apparently, silk can also be made from the cocoons after the worms have emerged so there can even be a "no kill" version of silk, although it is a lot rougher and knubby-er than most of the silk folks are used to.
Well, this is getting to be quite the exotic shopping list for the next trip into Hilo. 1. White mulberry plants from the next big plant sale (later this month) and 2. Silkworms.
Mulberry trees can be very messy, they can drop a lot of fruit at one time. If you leave any fruit on the ground, the berries will attract roaches and you won't want to go out at night until you've cleaned up every last berry.
That's why you keep a flock of geese to sit under the mulberry tree to gobble up any fruit that drops.
Who knows. Maybe it rains often enough to keep the goose poop rinsed into the ground.
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