Category Archives: Southwest Florida butterfly garden

Easy to spot

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The coloring of a monarch caterpillar has become easier to spot amongst all the vegetation.

I continue to have a burst of caterpillars go through the lifecycle, and then a break happens, allowing the balloon milkweed a chance to grow back, before it starts all over again.

I also have two giant milkweed in the garden, probably pushing 7 feet tall, and butterflyweed, so there is a plethora of food sources for them.

I hope in the coming months to continue to add more Southwest Florida native milkweed  to their space.

Tonight while walking through the garden I spotted a monarch caterpillar in its “j” form on my candlestick cassia, a neighboring plant to the milkweed. There were still droplets of rain on the caterpillar.  Hopefully, I can watch it make its chrysalis in the morning.

As I continued to walk through the garden, I spotted another monarch caterpillar crawling on one of the many sage plants. It seemed to be trying to find its spot to make its chrysalis.

Here are a few newly emerged monarch butterflies from the garden, as well as some visitors enjoying the nectar.

Certified

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I have worked really hard over the last six years to plant natives in my butterfly garden. 

This year has shown me why planting native  is so important – with the extreme drought SWFL has experienced – my plants not only thrived, but multipled in some cases.

Starry rosineweed

The starry rosinweed is a perfect example of a thriving native plant. I added a second one to my space this year, more in direct sunlight. The flowers are stunning and the leaves add a great hue of green to the garden. This plant thrives in hardness zones 9b to 10a. It can spread 1 to 2 feet and grow 2 to 5 feet in size.

This year has shown me why planting native  is so important – with the extreme drought SWFL has experienced – my plants not only thrived, but multipled in some cases.

Once spring hit this year, I spent a lot of time in the garden cutting back plants and making room for additonal walkways to finally finish my designated garden space, as established plants have continued to grow in size, despite the lack of rain, beautifying my space.

Another plant that is thriving are my coontie plants. All of them have new growth, which is incredibly encouraging. This is the host plant for the atala butterfly, a stunning butterfly that has found my garden once.

The coontie is native to Florida and grows well in zones 8a to 11. They spread 3 to 5 feet, and grow 1 to 5 feet in height.

Over the years I have visited other gardens that have had certified wildlife habitat signs, which definitely sparked my interest. So with that thought tucked away, I continued to add more plants to the garden. Although I have some plants that are not native, they have been added for either a host or nectar plant for butterflies, the vast majority are native to my area.

This week I received my National Wildlife Federation certified wildlife habit sign, which I will display proudly.

It’s truly rewarding to plant a variety of butterfly host and nectar plants and watch my space transform into a destination for butterflies, bees, ladybugs and more.

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

Green and gold

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It was a quiet winter in the butterfly garden with the cold snaps we experienced here in Southwest Florida.

Althought the mornings start off with a slight chill in the air, by mid morning, definitely going into afternoon, the temperatures sure heat up bringing the butterflies fluttering into the garden.

I have had a butterfly garden for almost six years now – the thrill never gets old. Every day I walk through the garden in hopes of finding eggs, caterpillars, and chrysalis.

Lately, the hunt has been really easy as there are many caterpillars – monarch, gulf fritillary, polydamas swallowtail, and orange barred sulphur – right now on their various host plants.

The monarch caterpillars seem to mulitple as the days of the week go by.

There are many monarch caterpillars in every instar on the various milkweed throughout the garden. My two newly planted balloon milkweed have been a favorite.

The chrysalis are appearing as well, some on leaves, some roaming the perimeter of my house.

An absolute favorite

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There’s just something spectacular about the simple beauty of a zinnia flower. I found a stunning variety for a great deal and recently added them to the garden.

These flowers are incredibly easy to grow. I have pots sprinkled throughout the garden that have new growth starting already. 

The best part is the zinnia is a great nectar plant for butterflies.