A zinnia meal

It’s that time of year when the only good time to work in the garden is very early in the morning, or about an hour before the sun goes down.

There was a male monarch butterfly that followed me around the garden feasting on the nectar of many different colored zinnias. It loved the white and the orange flowers.

The zinnia is a wonderful flower to add to a butterfly garden. Butterflies of every species loves the nectar. The best part is it is among the easiest plants to grow. The best part is it constantly produces more seeds to continue a steady new growth in the garden.

It was rewarding to spend time in the garden, as we both co-existence almost side by side.

This beauty

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.

Up to 50

 

am in awe with this butterfly, the polydamas swallowtail. In eight days, I have had 50 butterflies emerge, 20 today alone. I still have more chrysalsis to emerge!

There is truly nothing more special than having a butterfly sit on your hand before it decides to fly away, or juat hangs out with yiu for a while. They are spectacular.

They continue to emerge

Every day since late last week I have had polydamas swallowtail butterflies emerge from their chrysalsis in our butterfly house.

Yesterday I had 9 emerge and today I had 7 for a total of 187 all time raised and released, with 19 in six days. The wonderful part, there are more yet to show their beauty!

A 4th of July beauty

My influx of polydamas swallowtail caterpillars have almost all went into their chrysalis.

There are a few left still munching away on some Dutchman pipe, their host plant.

Today, on this glorious 4th of July, the first of probably dozens, has emerged.

This one marks 169 that we have successfully raised and released. Since it did not want to leave my finger, I left it on my purpletop vervain, which is doing incredibe with our daily down pours, so it can fly away when ready