The polydamas, “gold rim” swallowtail butterflies have had a phenomenal year in the butterfly garden so far this year.
There were a few days I didn’t have an opportunity to walk through the garden and by the third day, wow. My birthwort plant is crawling with a couple dozen polydamas caterpillars feasting away on its host plant.
It’s fun to watch these guys grow. When they are smaller they stay together in a pack, but eventually spread out as they get bigger.
Butterflies appear when angels are near.
It never fails there is always a butterfly that emerges on a big day for my daughter. Today we had two.
Nature at its finest.
We had two butterflies emerge today, an orange barred sulphur (81) and a monarch butterfly (639).
We have had a great amount of rain yesterday and today and my garden is looking beautiful!
I had four butterflies emerge this morning in iur butterfly house, 3 monarch butterflies (now totaling 637 released) and one orange barred sulphur butterfly (now totaling 80 released).
The clouds finally parted, the rain stopped, and three of the four have been released.
There are so many things to love about a butterfly garden – tending to plants, attracting the butterfly lifecycle, being outdoors, and a favorite – having my entire family involved – my husband, and soon to be 9-year -old daughter.
My daughter has been involved since we first began our butterfly garden in May 2020. Still to this day if we go to a store, or nursery, with plants, she too has to pick one out to add to the garden. It’s been such a great joy to bring her along on this journey as she too can name plants, and identify the butterflies and caterpillars.
Well, as my garden continues to transform and take on a new look, my husband helped my daughter and I created stepping stones to finish my stone pathway.
I only found a few flower and circle shapped molds from the store for an affordable price, but needed more, so we could use the entire bag of concrete mix. My husband was able to create additional molds, by tracing my plastic molds, with material we had laying around. It worked brilliantly.
Although my daughter decorated almost all of the stones, my husband and I added some decoration as well with some beautifully colored stones. We now know to push those decorative stones into the concrete a little more, so it will not chip off.
We still have more stepping stones to make, and I have more walkway to complete, but I am loving what has transpired so far. I have found additional ideas for stepping stones that I am excited to create.
Once the walkway is complete, we will be able to walk through the entire garden on a path, something I have been wanting to do since the garden continued to grow.
My butterfly garden is located right outside my front door and goes along the pathway to the driveway and then extends the length of the house. I have said this multiple times, it was a great placement, as I can watch the butterflies from my couch. The best, though, is catepillars love the little nook by my front door to create its chrysalis.
This time a monarch butterfly chrysalis.
