The temperatures have been a little cooler, by that I meam a few degrees – still 90s/80s, and a nice, a bit cooler wind, so I’ve gravitated back into the garden after apparently ignoring it for way too long. All of the rain has made everything double, if not triple in size, including the weeds.
So, I’ve decided to tackle the farthest point of the garden and move backward. This area includes a section near my candlestick cassia. The tree is growing in every direction and is crawling with sulphur caterpillars, both orange barred and cloudless sulphur caterpillars.
When cutting back my scorpion tail, I found quite a few chrysalis, which have been moved to my butterfly house.
With the sun shining and temperatures warm, I decided to do some maintenance in the garden. My scorpion tail bush has grown out of control, into the sidewalk, as well as popping up in the most random places, so I decided to do a little trimming.
With my 7 year olds watchful eye, she noticed 4 monarch chrysalis attached to branches I had cut off. I always wonder where the caterpillars disappear, as their chrysalis are not always in plain sight. These four really crawled deep into the vegetation to make their chrysalis. They are now in our butterfly house, so they can emerge safely.
In September, the Atala butterfly, Eumaeus atala poey, found my garden and left behind some eggs on its host plant, coontie. The exciting part about this is I planted its host plant earlier this year – plant it and they will come!!
This incredibly stunning, largest, iridescent hairstreak in southeastern Florida, was thought to be extinct from 1937 to 1959. The atala butterfly are mostly found in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, but with the help of butterfly enthusiasts’ colonies have begun in other areas of southern Florida, such as Martin, Monroe, Collier and Lee County.
These little beauties are small in size, ranging from 2 cm to 2.7 cm. The University of Florida states that the females have bright iridescent royal blue on the upper surface of the forewing, while the male is iridescent Caribbean blue, or teal green scales on the upper and lower wings.
The eggs, which are laid on the newest growth of its host plant, coontie, can be laid in clusters up to 60 eggs. The University of Florida states that the eggs, through proteins secreted by the female, are glued to the surface of the coontie plant and are clear on the underside.
The eggs hatched on Oct. 6, after being laid on Sept. 28, and the butterflies began emerging on Nov. 7. Quite the cycle for these little beauties. Many of them created their chrysalis right on the coontie plant, while a few crawled up to the top of the mesh enclosure and created it there.
I have quite a few of its favorite nectar plants in the garden, sweet almond bush – which right now unfortunately does not have any fragrant flowers, and the scorpion tail, which is pictured below. Others include native lantana, bloodberry, wild coffee, porterweed, beautyberry, indigoberry, Florida privet, rougeplant, firebush, salvia, Spansh needles, cabbage palm, as well as Dahoon Holly, Blackbead, Florida Fiddlewood, avocado, live oak, wild lime and golden dewdrops.
Here are an abundance of photos from the eggs to the half a dozen we have released into our garden. My daughter and I spotted one in the garden yesterday, which we hope will be a frequent thing as we would love to have a colony in our garden.
I was elated when I saw a gulf fritillary butterfly sipping nectar from my scorpion tail nectar plant, which is planted right outside our front window. Of course, I grabbed the camera and headed outside. I love this species because it is never bothered by you taking photographs. It kept flying from flower to flower, sometimes extremely close to where I was standing, and other times farther away.
The scorpion tail plant is definitely one that grows well here in Southwest Florida. It was a tiny plant in a one gallon pot when purchased. Now it is lush and full and growing tall and wide. The great thing about this plant is you can cut it back and it just grows thicker.
