Beautiful site

My giant milkweed has exploded with monarch caterpillars again. They look to be close to their final instar, if not the final instar. Their gorgeous green chrysalsis will be appearing soon.

New pathways

I’m really excited about the two pathways that are going through the butterfly garden.

The brick pathway is through the first portion of the garden, which is complete. My daughter painted them years ago, but the paint has since come off, or fading a ton. I may have to scrub them clean, so she can create new designs on them again.

The stone pathway I began today to go through the second portion of the garden.

This pathway, although is very time consuming, I’m loving how it is turning out. My husband brought bricks home years ago and I never knew quite what to do with them. I started getting rid of them, a little every week, until an idea sprung.

I am now using a sledge hammer and breaking them to create another artsy pathway. It’s a huge jigsaw puzzle putting all the broken pieces together.

The best part of today, of course was watching the variety of butterflies that visited the garden while I was out there. We had monarchs, gulf fritillaries, orange barred sulphurs, great southern whites, dainty sulphurs, Cassius blue, polydamas swallowtail and one I got extremely excited about, the giant swallowtail. I sure have created an oasis!

This video shows a polydamas swallowtail, orange barred sulphur and gulf fritillary.

An Easter male monarch

The last of the huge influx of monarch caterpillars emerged today, Easter morning, in our butterfly house.

This beauty is number 632 monarchs that we have raised.

There is a ton of nectar plants in full bloom in the garden, an Easter feast. Its absolutely gorgeous with all the colors. Here’s a blanket flower. They are everywhere!

Monarch galore

More monarch butterflies have emerged and released. Thirty-two monarch butterflies have been released since Saturday, April 5. The wonderful news –  there are still more chrysalsis in the butterfly house. Our total has now reached 628 monarch butterflies released over the past few years.