The monarchs are returning!
 

My master gardener wife plants flowers for the butterflies and bees. Lots of them.

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She plants a lot of the milkweed that is a favorite for the monarchs. I pointed out two of the caterpillars, but look near the bottom of that photo, on the leaf. See the black stuff, that is all caterpillar poop. They will strip the leaves from most all of the milkweed.

She has other plants for many other types of butterflies.

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This is another view of the same garden area. The purple flowers are something the bees love. That bush and other she has sound like an overloaded transformer at times as it is literally buzzing with bees. We found two guys that raise bees just a mile away, and they give us some free raw honey for feeding so many bees. She gave them some cutting of the purple flower bush for their yards.

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Different view of the same garden earlier in the spring.

One bush-tree she has in the corner of the yard is a favorite of the adult monarchs as they migrate. Last fall I was mowing back there, and it is kind of freaky having dozens of butterflies flying around my head. I know with 100% certainty that can't sting or bit me or hurt me, but just the swarm of them as I try to mow the area is just a bit freaky.

Time to go and mow the yard again.

Very nice!
My wife has the same type of natural gardens.
The milk weed does make a mess in the fall and half of it ends up in the garage.

Our milkweed is usually all stripped to the stems with no leaves by the caterpillars. About February she takes over the bathtub in the guests bathroom, and starts from seeds the new crop of plants. The kitchen dining room is a 10 foot wide window made up of multiple windows. It looks like a jungle in there in the winter time and spring. I believe she just yanks out the old milkweed stalks after she harvest the crop of seeds.

I saw several monarchs out there today when I was mowing. I remember 30 years ago driving east on I-40 towards Arkansas. The side of the road was orange from dead monarchs hit by cars and trucks. They monarchs were thick.

When we moved in 25 years ago that entire area was just Bermuda grass I had to mow. Now I don't have to mow it at all, just dig up old dead plants, and dig holes for new plants.

That's fantastic. It's great to watch the circle of life with monarchs. My parents spent last week with us, and my dad commented on how many butterflies he saw in our yard.

I have a lot of milkweed in my garden as well as other butterfly yummies but I never get more than a handful of butterflies and rarely more than one or two caterpillars. However, I do get 4 species of bees.

Next time you make it to Monterey/Laguna Seca, Glen, take the opportunity to stop by the butterfly grove. There's also one in Grover Beach (by Pismo). Tens of thousands of them in the trees.

Well, I have heard that they do like red.

When we were kids living in rural CT, dirt road, can't see your nearest neighbor, there was a field of goldenrod behind our house. Flocks of monarch butterflies came every year. I wouldn't blink if there were 10,000 of them at a time, the field was more orange and black than yellow and the air was thick with them when they took flight. Great memory.

I've got at least a half dozen very healthy wild milkweeds waiting to be eaten, huge butterfly bushes and flowering mint, plenty of other insects(honey bees,wasps, bumble bees), but only one brown Monarch as a regular so far.

I saw a Monarch butterfly in the Mexican Sunflowers yesterday. I should be checking the milkweed for caterpillars.

Great that you take such an interest in wildlife. What species of milkweed does she grow? I have common milkweed here. It is rhizomous and creates colonies. We never do anything to it, just let it spread.


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This is my wildflower garden in August. In the spring when all the showy flowers are out everyone oohs and ahhs about it. About this time of year they start calling it my weed patch. I guess it is technically a weed patch - mostly Milk Weed and Joe Pye Weed.

I normally see very few Monarch Butterflies around my turtles pond.
The past few weeks, there have been some huge ones hovering around....then I realized that I never had a Hummingbird feeder out until about a month ago.

They see the red, but they can't get at the nectar. Beautiful insects.

I have no idea what species of milkweed it is. She researches what will grow in our zone. We do have one plumeria, it comes in the house and sits in the kitchen window but drops all of the leaves. It goes back outside when the freezes are over.

She has all sorts of plants that are uncommon, and some weird hybrid flowering trees. I just dig the holes for the plants, and help build flowerbeds. This spring one flower bed was extended 8 feet wider into the yard. Killing the established Bermuda grass that was there is the hard part.

There were a ton in New River Gorge in W.Va and a lot at Mammoth in Ky week before last. We have milkweed all over - the wife has a vivarium for them to pupate - but they haven’t made it up here in any numbers this year.

I have all of these asclepias varieties.

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A monarch like the one above is what I remember from growing up in North Texas. Some years there’d be maybe 50-100 on one tree trunk. On their way to Mexico maybe. Quite a drop in numbers after the 1980s…

We have lots of other butterflies.

Fritillary Butterflies have found us as well.
https://www.butterfliesathome.com/fritillary-butterflies.htm
I am not sure which subspecies we have. I would guess the Gulf or Mexican, but I don't know for sure.

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Next to the lock is one that has attached and is beginning the process of metamorphosis. We will have to be very careful using the gate for a while until it emerges. This morning we counted 14 of them attached to the fence in various places. You can see the yard inspectors as well, Reese on the left, and Reuben on the right.

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Some of them are still eating the vine and growing there are over a dozen caterpillars all over the vine.

The milkweed in the front garden is mostly stems and very little left of the leaves due to the monarchs.

There are hummingbirds and lots of other butterflies, from very small ones, to large black with yellow spots ones.

The caterpillar in post 1 is indeed a Monarch, as is the male mature butterfly in post 17. The caterpillars in post 18 are not. Monarchs tend to lay eggs on milkweed, as it makes the caterpillar toxic to most predators if eaten. I don't know what is eating the leaves on the vine. Maybe they are related to the swallowtail in post 7.
Beautiful gardens!

Best
Les

Yea, I posted they are Fritillary Butterfly caterpillars. We are not prejudice, we feed all butterflies and moths that come for a meal.

Excellent. The widespread use of glysophates in agribusiness has taken us almost back to the Silent Spring scenario predicted by Rachael Carson back in 60s. Anything you can do to assist pollinators is a bonus.

Keep up the great work.
Best
Les

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Wow, that was fast!

The earlier photos 8:18 AM today. This new one was taken at 1:25 PM, so just a little over 5 hours later and the caterpillar now is a chrysalis! Amazing transformation in just a few hours. That gate is just a few yards from my spot in the garage for the El Camino. I was pulling in to park, and noticed the transformation. I figured it would be overnight to change.

They started showing up around here a day or two ago. They REALLY like the Mexican Sunflowers. I assume the adults are just feeding on the Sunflowers and they'll go out into the field and lay their eggs on the Milkweed plants.

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This is the left side of the gate that is for vehicles to access the back yard. All of these are Fritillary Butterfly cocoons. There are several more along that fence. Last night there was on of the caterpillars on the back porch looking for a place to connect to. I moved him to the fence close to thee photo above. They are all over the back yard fences.

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We have butterfly puppies! This one was emerging this morning. Lots more to come out of their cocoons, and we counted 18 of them hanging and in various stages of metamorphosis.

The real Monarch invasion will start very soon. We have one bush-tree called a "Seven Son Temple of Bloom." I did not name it! It is about to pop out with a zillion flowers that the adult monarchs love. The bees like it as well.

And yea, I had to ask my master gardener wife what it was called.