Monarch Caterpillars days 3 and 4

Yesterday I went out to observe the monarch caterpillars I talked about two days ago and was a little bummed to only find three caterpillars after observing four on the plants on the first day. And since I figured the other one was taken by a bird, I was grateful I had rescued one to see if I could be a good "adopted mama". Here are the three I saw yesterday:

But today... I counted not four but SIX on the plants. Today was also the first chance I've been able to clean out the glass jar my little guy has been living in, so you can see him in his jar at the end of the post...

These first two pics are the same caterpillar (the youngest one is also in the background here but far enough away that he's pretty blurry)

 (I love this shot with two of them)

Oh I'm so excited!!! They are voracious eaters though, so I hope the plants can take it.

I've also considered "rescuing" another of the six that are currently outside, but haven't yet. I don't want them to kill each other in the confined space of this jar. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Monarch Caterpillars in my garden 2013

Yesterday I discovered four monarch caterpillars on my 10 shoots of milkweed! Wahoo! But before I get to those beauties, almost two weeks ago I watched this little beauty on the salvia in my butterfly garden (the first time I've seen butterflies on this plant that normally attracts swarms of bees)

The other day I was lucky enough to catch a monarch floating past my garden, but it didn't stop. I assumed this was because the milkweed has not yet bloomed. So, the appearance of the caterpillars was a welcome surprise!
 From yesterday:

 After gathering one of the little guys and placing him in a new home inside my house (we'll see if I can do a good job as an adoptive butterfly mama), I noticed another little guy on top of the milkweed flower buds... bringing the total to five monarch caterpillars! (click on the photos to enlarge)

I'll try to check on them and get new pictures each day.

Want to see some of these in your yard? Plant some milkweed in full sun.

This is my second year where I've had monarch caterpillars. Last year I also had some swallowtail caterpillars, but doubt I'll get any this year as all my dill and parsley died, so I don't have any food for them. Maybe next year.

Berries!! Reaping what was sown...

So two years ago I started a real garden. I mean, for real, I dug up an area of our yard, put in a raised bed (two actually), and planted berries. I planted raspberries and blueberries. (I also have one of those hanging strawberry planters.) Just to clarify, I love berries! I am a sugar-holic and would be a fruititarian - as my parents termed my brother when he would eat nothing but fruit - if my organs and pocketbook could take it. Last year, I picked many raspberries and discovered that they really need a trellis to support their 7 ft height.

This year with our early spring and summer, I am actually in town to partake of the wonderful fruits. For the first time, one of my blueberry plants actually is starting to create berries, and the raspberries have gone crazy! A good kind of crazy. I have been going out every day to pick a handful/bowlful of berries. I couldn't go on Saturday, so on Sunday I got to collect two day's worth of berries - 4oz - and there are still many unripe ones on the bushes! So what did I do with those 4 oz? Save them for a healthy snack the next day? Nope, I ate them all in one sitting, not an hour later. They were fantastic!

A few days ago, I got the first strawberry that I could and yesterday I picked off 9 more. Healthy snack today! Yippee!! Now if only I had the patience and ability to make a larger portion of our yard into a garden, think how wonderful that would be! Oh, and a hot house, and a whole area devoted to butterflies, and more consistent composting, and.....

All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles

Dew on Plants

Sunday morning I was outside looking at my "gardens" (I hesitate to call them that as it's more like weed areas with a few flowers somehow popping up in between), and I noticed how the dew drops on the leaves were doing really awesome things in the light, so I got my camera and attempted to take some photos. For the most part, because I kept the depth of field so shallow, there's only one shot where droplets are truly in focus, but unless you blow the pictures up, you really can't tell. Anyway, here they are:

Columbine Leaves

 Strawberry Leaves:

 Lambsear:

All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles

Butterflies and Caterpillars and Bees...Oh My!

Since I planted flowers in my garden this summer, I've witness a number of bugs enjoying them. The first I saw were bees, and there have been a LOT of bees - incidentally I'm ok with this as bee habitats have been diminishing as well as butterfly habitats - they seem to really like the bee balm and blanket flowers.

 Though I haven't seen many butterflies, the caterpillars really loved the dill - it took one day for a single caterpillar to devour the whole plant - and then they moved on to the parsley. I found five on the plant at one time (Black Swallowtails, Papilio polyxenes) :

I should note that, though it appears that there are two different kinds of caterpillars on this plant, they are actually all black swallowtails. The black ones with yellow spots are younger. They shed their skin to make more room for feeding. The green with black spots are the fully grown caterpillars that turn into a chrysalis. The next day, the three remaining caterpillars were quite fat and my parsley was reduced to nubs (I was hoping they'd make their cocoons nearby, but I didn't find them):

 A few days later I found two of these monarch caterpillars on the milkweed:

 Finally a butterfly - a Common Buckeye, or Junonia coenia

 And just a few days ago, a little further away, on one of my irises that failed to bloom this spring, is a cocoon! It's taking everything in me to keep from bringing it inside to see what kind of butterfly emerges - possibly a monarch? Since you can see a bit of the wings through the chrysalis, I'm guessing it won't be long now.

I've thought about next summer keeping some parsley in a pot and then constructing some sort of cage that I could bring inside, so if I end up with more swallowtail caterpillars, I can bring them inside to watch the whole process. I've found a few sites that talk about using an old fish tank or something, but I was hoping for something less heavy honestly. If you know of anything - plans or already constructed sanctuaries - I'd love to hear from you! Or if you've done this and had success, I'd love to hear about that too!!

All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles

Gardening for Butterflies - a novice attempt

Did you know that most butterflies have a life-span of about two weeks? Did you know that natural butterfly habitats are on the decline? Thankfully there are gardeners who are also avid butterfly watchers, willing to cultivate plants for butterflies and caterpillars. Fortunately, the plants butterflies prefer are also some of the prettiest-blooming plants, with sweet nectar and large gorgeous blooms, so even if the butterflies aren't swarming, there's plenty to see.

In June, after my glorious time with the butterflies in Colorado, I finally began working on a space in my yard butterfly-friendly plants. Of course, I'm not so great at planning when it comes to gardening, so I bought my plants before figuring out where to put them, then I dug up a space next to our driveway - one of the few partial to full sun areas in our yard - and planted my new flowers:

 Just after planting

 All the plants labelled

A few weeks later I moved the Hibiscus over since I looked at the tag and realized it needed a lot more space than I gave it originally, and one of the Bella Blue plants has died, but otherwise all have faired relatively well, considering my lack of green thumb.

 Phlox

 Bee Balm

 Dwarf Butterfly Bush

Daylily

Hibiscus

I didn't get any good pictures of the milkweed blooming as I am having troubles with scale bugs taking over and sucking all the juices from it - actually, they nearly killed the butterfly bush before they took over the milkweed. A daily hosedown of the plants has really helped keep that under control, and today I found a ladybeetle on the plant, hopefully gobbling up all those icky orange buggers.

Do you have a butterfly garden? What plants have you had success with?

All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles

Next post: critters in my garden!