Category Archives: fire bush

Great activity

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Mornings are a great part of the day to walk through the garden and admire all the butterflies fluttering about.

The monarch butterfly could not get enough of nectar from one of the fire bush plants. It was awsome to watch its head disappear into the opening of the flower grabbing as much nectar as possible through its proboscis.

The polydamas swallowtails were also active, with three of them fluttering about. They were finding both its host plants, birthwort pucgured below, and stops on nectar plants throughout the entire length of the garden.

And of course it would not be complete without the active gulf fritillaries.

These guys are fun to watch, as they chase off many other species of butterflies while stopping on its favorite plants, porterweed.

Butterfly gardening has become such an amazing passion of mine. Who would have thought the saying “plant them and they will come” would continue to draw my excitement and attention almost 7 years later?

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I had a huge influx of polydamas swallowtail caterpillars last month on my birthwort and Dutchman pipevine plants, their host plants.

The polydamas swallowtail lay their eggs in clusters, so the population can grow pretty quickly.

The polydamas lays yellow to orange eggs in clusters of 10 to 14, which can typically be spotted on newly developed stems, or growing tips. The butterfly tends to lay its eggs on the tips that are in sunny areas, although the caterpillars have a higher survival rate in the shade.

As they grew in size they all started to disappear in the garden, and yes on the side of the house, to make their chrysalis.

Polydamas swallowtail on a coontie plant.

I was excited to spot a newly emerged polydamas swallowtail butterfly tucked in my golden rod plant this morning.

It’s always fascinating to find where the chrysalis end up. Often times I don’t spot them until the butterflies have emerged.

One of my favorite things about this butterfly is the speed of the wings. They are constantly fluttering when sipping on nectar, or laying eggs. Here is a polydamas swallowtail enjoying nectar from my fire bush plant.

https://sweetbutterflybliss.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/20260720_120512.mp4

Finally rain

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Southwest Florida has had a pretty extreme drought this year, so when it actually rains, I get really excited. I am happy that my garden is mostly native, with well established plants, as it still thrives with the lack of rain we have been experiencing.

I just finished working on the garden – 3 weeks of hard, yet relaxing and gratifying work.

Mist flower

It seems as though every spring I get pulled into the garden for a reimagined look. Although, a good portion was left the same, I added new walkways around my well established plants, redesigned other walkways, curbed the garden to separate it from the yard, and layed 40 plus bags of mulch down.

The rain came in handy because I of course added new plants to fill new spaces. These are still becoming established.

I try to add a new butterfly host plant to the garden every year to see what more I can attract.

Wild petunia

The nectar plants seem to remain the same for the most part, as it has been trial and error of what grows well in my sandy soil.

Black Eyed Susan

The Black Eyed Susan was one of the first flowers I planted six years ago. Unfortunately, both times I tried adding it in the garden it did not do well. Now that my garden offers both shade and sunny areas I decided to give it another try. The rain definitely helped with this plant tonight.

Black Eyed Susan

The zinnia and lantana are new, yet old plants, that I replenish every year, as they are butterfly favorites.

Zinnia
Lantana

Some of other plants pictured below are in multiple spots in the garden, while the butterfly bush was just too beautiful not to add to the space.

Fire bush
Starry rosinweed
Butterfly bush

A little breakfast

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The gulf fritillary butterfly is always one of the first visitors in the morning. Not just one, but a half a dozen at a time. This one was enjoying a fire bush.

Another was enjoying the nectar of a Mexican sunflower.

This beauty

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It is always a thrill to spot the zebra longwing butterfly, especially since Hurricane Ian impacted our area in Sept. 2022. That devastating hurricane did quite a number on the state butterfly.

I have spotted the zebra longwing a few times in my garden in the past few years. Today, it caught my eye while in my mom’s garden, as she has quite a few mature fire bush planted, one of their favorite nectar plants.

There’s hope that this butterfly will once again find the garden, it’s host plant, corkystem passionvine, and start its lifecycle in our garden again.