Purple Chinese Houses and Pipevine swallowtail caterpillar

Collinsia heterophylla or simply called Purple Chinese Houses are larvae food for the Checkerspot butterfly. They are best planted in the Fall and then they emerge in the early Spring to flower. Below are a few pictures from the patch below our living room window. I scattered seeds from Larner Seeds this past Fall. Now, as you can see from the pictures below there are gloriously stunning flowers.

Pipevine swallowtail caterpillar update. Oh boo! of the five teeny tiny caterpillars Rob gave me only one remains. Below are pictures are chronicling the health and well BEing of the caterpillar flourishing on my largest of three California Pipevines with the scientific name Aristolochia californica.

05/09/2022

05/11/2022

05/15/2022

05/16/2022

05/18/2022

In watching the caterpillar every day and
observing what is it is eating, I notice it 
not only eats the leaves but the stems as well.

And as I am riveted on this caterpillars evolvement I

Just Awesome

A few months hiatus from gardening and writing a post.  Monday while Vickie pulled errant bindweed and I pruned back going to seed annuals, we were rewarded with the most spectacular viewing:    Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars,

a pupating Pipevine Swallowtail 

and a tree frog all nestled among the tangles of Pipevine.

A month or so ago on a warm, sunny day I saw a Pipevine Swallowtail hovering about the native Pipevine.  A few days later I searched for the black dots of recentlylaid eggs, not finding any. But she obviously did lay her mirade of  eggs.
I just could not find them in the tangles of California Pipevine.

This just awesome sight of Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars and pupae just blew us all away.  It has been a few years
since we have been treated to Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies in the making.

Let me know if you all have viewed equally just awesome sights. And