My excitement, finding adorable garden art to add to my most favorite space. My husband and I were out shopping when this adorable caterpillar caught my attention and kept it.
I haven’t found its final destination yet, but everytime I walk past it, it makes me smile.
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.
It’s been amazing to see the amount of monarch caterpillars in the gardens. Even more amazing are the chrysalis that are popping up in and around the garden. Some caterpillars have crawled a good distance to make a chrysalis on my garage doors, to the side of the house, and of course on posts in the garden.
Seriosuly, does it get better than this? A monarch caterpillar conversing with a monarch butterfly on a giant milkweed. Nature is the best, butterfly gardens even better.
This morning, we had two monarch butterflies emerge and released into the front garden. Both of them were female, and both fluttered to a different destination among the plants to rest a little longer. One a few times.
We had our first of 2023 monarch butterfly emerge yesterday in our butterfly house. This beautiful male was eager to fly away, making it No. 350 that we have successfully reached since we began this journey.
The great thing is the garden is very active, as well as the butterfly house with many chrysalis and caterpillars.
It is incredibly rewarding to witness the life cycle of the butterfly. The nest part is sharing that passion with not only my daughter, but iur fsmily and friends too.
I am excited to share that 2023 is bringing a new vision for me, one that includes growing many host and nectar plants from seed. I am having huge success with zinnia and dill so far.
