A Garden Grown for Monarchs

Part I:  Butterfly to Egg to First Instar Caterpillar

After close to nine months of research about Monarchs, their life cycles, and what their caterpillars eat as well as a lot of hard work planning and planting nectar flowers and host plants in the garden, one of my dreams has come true.  I have three Monarchs in the garden at this time.  Although several male Monarchs have appeared over the last couple of months, all very beautiful and exciting to behold, I needed females to come and lay eggs and they have finally arrived.

Male Monarch  on a butterfly bush or Buddleia Davidii
(< points to one of two black spots, which are scent glands,  that only appear on the bottom wing of a male)

Female Monarch on Tropical or Mexican butterfly milkweed 

By the first week in July, two females appeared and began laying eggs immediately upon their arrival in the garden.  Of course, I had many milkweed host plants waiting on them, some in bloom and some not.  Butterfly milkweed, for which there are many varieties, is the only host plant the Monarch caterpillar can eat.  I applied and was approved by Monarchwatch.org back in October 2012 to become a Monarch waystation.  This required, among many things, that I grow butterfly milkweed for the Monarch caterpillar.  Although I realized that Ocala, Florida is not in the direct migration path for the Monarch, I gambled on the fact that the central portion of the  peninsula does get strays migrating up and down the length of the state, making their home here.  I wondered for many months if these beautiful creatures would grace my garden with their presence. 

Female Monarch on Silky Gold butterfly milkweed.  

 I was fortunate to buy five Silky Gold milkweed plants with seed pods in tact last year from the University of Florida's Butterfly Rainforest.  I harvested many seeds and saved them for planting in my winter greenhouse.  When the last frost was over in March, I was ready to plant several milkweed host plants in various places in the garden.  So far, I have succeeded in growing two varieties, Silky Gold, which has a bright yellow flower and Tropical or Mexican milkweed, which has a red and yellow flower.  

Seeds of the Silky Gold butterfly milkweed plant 

The Monarchs, both female and male, love both of these two plants as I have seen lots of activity and egg laying on both types of milkweed.  The female butterflies have no problem finding the right plant, with or without blooms.  Usually when a female lays eggs, she appears to be hopping to and from each plant, putting an egg or two on one plant at a time.   I have no idea if they even mated with the one male already making his home here.

Female Monarch laying an egg on Silky Gold butterfly milkweed

Monarch egg on Silky Gold butterfly milkweed

 I have read that a female can lay up to 600 eggs with sometimes only one surviving the elements to hatch and become a caterpillar and then a butterfly.  I have many predators in my garden, as I use no pesticides. Although of course I will let nature do its thing outside and hope to observe some of the caterpillars turn into butterflies in the garden setting, I am also very curious about the whole process and am conducting my own research to watch the process of egg to butterfly in a controlled environment.  Once I found several plants with Monarch eggs, I decided to cut off the top of one plant with five eggs and hatch them in a container inside my screen room.  At this point I have two eggs hatched into very small caterpillars.  Just hours after hatching, these little babies are only about a 1/8 of an inch long and starting to eat milkweed that I have cut and put in water. I will be providing new milkweed every couple of days.

First Instar Monarch caterpillar (about 1/8 inch long)

As the caterpillars I am raising in captivity grow, more pictures will be posted of their transformation.  A Monarch caterpillar goes through several stages of shedding its skin and growing bigger.  Once a caterpillar becomes fully grown, it will attach itself to a sturdy place and transform into a chrysalis.  It takes approximately four days for a Monarch egg to hatch into the first instar caterpillar and a little over 3.5 more weeks for it to transform into a butterfly.  I will provide more documentation on this process very shortly.  Stay tuned and thank you for reading my posts.

Devotion to the Black Swallowtail

Devotion to the Beautiful Black Swallowtail Butterfly

Black Swallowtail female on wild phlox (nectar source)

Next to the flowers in my backyard, that is basically an ancient sand dune that must be amended constantly with compost and manure, I grow a variety of host plants to feed the butterfly babies (caterpillars).  The Black Swallowtail butterfly's caterpillars eat herbs (host plants) from the carrot family, which includes many plants.  I grow only a few from this family, mainly dill, parsley, and fennel just to feed the swallowtails.  Although this year, I have many varieties of butterflies stop to drink from the nectar of my flowers, the Black Swallowtail butterfly is the one responsible for renewing my devotion to organic gardening and for creating an almost obsessive desire to grow flowers and plants to attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.  I discovered my first caterpillar eating my one little pot of parsley last year and this began a whirlwind of voracious reading and research about butterflies, which nectar flowers to grow for the butterflies and host plants to grow for their caterpillars.  My task became clear at once.  I must build them a garden.  The vegetables have taken a secondary position to the flowers and host plants, which take center stage.  But, the profusion of flowers are just a backdrop 

.behind the presence of beautiful flying visitors

Today, I am a completely devoted fan of butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds and love sharing my gardening activities with the world, if for no other reason than to create and share an awareness of nature that we sometimes forget is right in our own back yards.  The world is a beautiful place and all we have to do is look outside to see it.  So, I am going to show you a little piece of mine today with the beautiful Black Swallowtail.

Butterflies have brought me the closest I have ever been to experiencing Zen, fleeting though it may be, fluttering in and out of my soul, just as the butterfly does in my garden, or should I say, their garden. Let's put this into perspective:  I grow it for them.  I constantly say to myself, "if you build it, they will come."  This is my twist on the quote, taken from the movie "Field of Dreams".  Though a butterfly lives a short life cycle, and every few weeks when I see new babies I know most of the ones from just weeks ago are gone, they remind me to live every moment right now, and to appreciate the good and the beautiful things that life has to offer.  All I have to do is be willing to see it, feel it, live it, and share it. 

Enjoy my pictures, for I want nothing else except to ask of you to please be responsible in your garden.  Grow without pesticides so we may continue to enjoy the beauty of a our butterflies, hummingbirds and bees and appreciate the work they do for us in helping our food to grow.  They have a right to a healthy environment just as we do.

Black Swallowtail Female

Black Swallowtail Male

First stage or instar of a swallowtail caterpillar eating dill (host plant that provides food) after the egg hatches.

 May 2013. 
Two days of eating fennel (host plant) and the four or five caterpillars chomped this plant from four feet down to about two feet.  They aren't done yet.  I wonder if they will move to a different flower bed once this plant is devoured?

This is one of my first and most favorite pictures of the Black Swallowtail butterfly.  These caterpillars had devoured a pot of parsley on the ground below and then crawled up to the shelf above, created a chrysalis on this succulent and transformed into these beautiful creatures (male above, female below).

My nature experiment with a chrysalis habitat (thank you Julie).  I observed the whole process from caterpillar to butterfly.  I enclosed the caterpillar inside the habitat with parsley (host plant) and a week later it transformed to the following beauty.

A Black Swallowtail female born in a chrysalis habitat.  She was set free about an hour later, once she was ready to go.

I will close this blog for now and say to the perfectionists out there, "I am a work in progress, as is my garden."  Any comments and suggestions are welcome and I thank you for taking the time to read.






The butterfly garden is truly starting to put on a show.  The zinnias and pink phlox are at their height and truly take my breath away every time I go out to the garden.  Pictures can hardly capture the awesome beauty.

Zinnias and pink wild Phlox in the background

Zinnia flower bed
 

Bee on Tithonia
I would love to have a hive of honey bees, but I need to do a lot more research on the subject.  We have pets, and I want to make sure all family members are okay with the possibilities.
 

Silky Gold Butterfly Milkweed is starting to produce seed.  I am letting the seed fly away to find its own home to grow.

Pink Zinnia 

Bird's nest in my geraniums growing in the greenhouse.  I am not watering this plant anymore since there are three eggs and a momma bird in there.  She flies out at me every day and starts squawking.  Hoping the babies survive the cats.  I have a fence around the whole thing for protection.
 

Tomatoes are ripening

We have six tomato plants with ripening tomatoes, two hills of squash, several cucumber and  eggplants, and multiple green pepper plants.  I am not focusing that much attention on the vegetables since I am an organic garden and only use Joy soap as an insect deterrent.  Vegetables are not counted before they mature but we are grateful to be eating some fresh tomatoes.  Tomatoes are grown in huge containers with soil we bought at the local landscaping shop.  The green peppers are producing but are bitter, which means I need to spread more rich compost around them.  I never give up on growing vegetables, but keep trying new techniques.  More pictures of vegetables will be posted soon. 

 

 

 Winter and Spring 2013

Since I am an organic gardener at heart, and several attempts at growing food for humans left me with many bugs and no human food, this year I have focused my gardening activities on growing food for the beautiful bugs.  I am growing some vegetables, but have scattered them in various places, not in the center stage of my garden. 

Many species of butterflies are starting to show up every day for the flowers and host plants, as well as the occasional hummingbird.  Here are the pictures. Enjoy!

Palamedes Swallowtail upper right.  Two Giant Swallowtails on the lower left.  The flower is a red Pentas.  This picture was taken in late winter 2013. 

Indian Blanket

 

Scarlet Salvia on the left and Indian Blanket on the right



Lady Bug on Silky Gold Butterfly Milkweed

Small pink Zinnias top and wild pink Phlox on the bottom

Monarch on Red Pentas in the fall of 2012

Verbena



 

Blue Salvia and Red Pentas

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (female)

Palamedes Swallowtails

side view of a Giant Swallowtail

Hummingbird on Scarlet Sage

Lady Bug on Silky Gold Butterfly Milkweed



Zebra Swallowtail



Collage of Zebra Longwings on Tithonia

Red Spotted Purple



Gulf Fritillary on Tithonia

Zinnia

Zebra Longwings

 

Monarch (male) on Silky Gold Butterfly Milkweed

Gladiola

Wild Pink Phlox

 

Lance Leaved Coreopsis

 

Small Zinnia

Winter Pansey

 

 



Aquamarine Datura Metel

The Datura and Brugmansia Crazies

During the winter of 2011 and 2012, I became a fanatic of the Datura and Brugmansia flowers.  I started several of them from seed, and waited impatiently for them to come up in the greenhouse.  The first plant was a Datura, called a Black Currant Swirl.  Although extremely beautiful, the bloom was a single layer lavender color.  I was expecting a triple layer bloom and had waited several months. So, I ordered the Versicolor Peach and Equador Pink Brugs, and Purple Petticoats triple layer as cuttings.  Once I got these plants, I was on my way to a beautiful experience.  Once I learned enough about the plants, I then grew from seed. I have also figured out the hard way that they are heat intolerant, which makes blooming difficult in the heat of the summer.  They are primarily a spring and fall plant and love night temps in the 50's.  Many people know these plants as Devil's (flowers point up) and Angels Trumpets (flower bells hang down), repectively.

Ecuador Pink Brugmansia

Ecuador Pink Brugmansia growing in the raised bed next to the greenhouse.

 

 

Versicolor Peach Brugmansia


The following pictures are the varieties of Datura species I grew this past summer.

Aquamarine Datura Metel (Angel's Trumpet)

 

 
Black Currant Swirl Datura Metel

 

 

Purple Petticoats triple layer Datura Metel

 

 

 

Triple Layer Yellow Datura Metel