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.