Butterfly Gardening Blog

No time to write a new post today – tree fell down on shed and vegetable garden last night! Read about it and see pictures here: If life hands you a tree make tree-ade.

Wow! I saw lots of butterflies in my garden this afternoon. At least its a lot for where I live. There were 4 large butterflies flying all close to the same time. Three swallowtails were all out there at the exact time even.

And – the best part – a butterfly I’ve only just previously seen fly through quickly and leave: a Zebra Swallowtail! You might remember that I mentioned seeing Zebra caterpillars recently when we were walking around at Shaw Nature Reserve. We had just gotten back from getting groceries and I went back to close the door and saw it right outside on some purple cone flowers. I ran back in and got the camera, but it wasn’t there. I walked all through the yard in the back and everything and thought for certain it had left – but then I found it! I got few pictures of it that were pretty good, they don’t like to hold their wings still though, so it isn’t easy.

It eventually started nectaring way high up on a white butterfly bush of mine. It seemed to prefer it over the purple ones.

Here it is on some rattlesnake master:

And now on the butterfly bush:

And then while I was still watching the Zebra, a yellow form Tiger Swallowtail and a dark form Tiger Swallowtail flew into my garden and starting nectaring on my plants:

And a little while after that a Monarch stopped by. It first was nectaring on my Iron Weed then resting on some pipevine where I was able to get a good picture of it:

A little later I also saw a Buckeye in my husbands ‘Zen’ garden area:

It was awfully hot out there though and I started getting a big overheated and had to come in, last I saw that Zebra Swallowtail was still there. It had to have been out there at least a half an hour. Definitely the longest I’ve ever seen one in my garden!

All together we had a nice day! Of course it was much cooler – now it is 90 something with a heat index of over 100!

After I got home I got stung by a wasp and found a bunch of little ticks on my ankles, but it still didn’t change the fact that we had a nice time earlier.

Hopefully we can go there again sometime when it is a bit cooler!

On the way out, I took this one last picture:

We also saw some cool stuff on some milkweed on the way out. The first were some type of caterpillars that I’ve seen before and were told what they were, but I don’t remember now!

The other is a red beetle that I’ve seen at home too and I’ve been curious about what they are. Any one know?

On the way back from the wetland area when we were walking through the prairie part again we see the weirdest orange stringy stuff growing around the plants in different patches. Anyone know what this stuff is? It doesn’t look like its doing the plants any good. You’ll probably have to click on the pictures to be able to see enough detail of it.

On the way out from the wetland area we saw a big patch of Queen of the Prairie. I wondering if maybe this stuff spreads? I’ve only had my one plant a couple years so I can’t really tell yet.

Then a little while later we were walking along and in the middle of all the green and some yellow now and then, there was a tiny little red flower! I don’t think it was possible to get a picture that shows how cool and pretty it really was in real life. Any one know what the flower is?

The wetland area was pretty cool too! Here are a couple pictures of part of it from a distance:

And here are a couple from the area covered with lily pads:

On the way to the wetland area there was a little look-out deck to walk out on. When I went up the stairs – at the top of them – there was the cutest little green froggy! He was adorable!

I haven’t been able to find out what species he is yet either – but I will have to find out. I would love to know what would attract these little guys to our yard!

Here’s a picture of him (or her!) from the front – if you click on the picture to see it bigger you can see a lot more detail:

Next is a picture my husband took of me taking a picture of it and then one I took of my husband taking a picture of the frog. They kind of help with understanding the size and scale of the frog:

Later on I saw another frog about the same size that was kind of brown or bronze in color, unfortunately it wouldn’t sit still for me to get a picture of it!

After that we walked through another prairie area on the way to the wetlands area.

Here are some of the flowers we saw along the way:

Here’s a picture of some butterfly weed (asclepias tuberosa). It seems I can never get a good picture of these blooms – its like they are so bright they overwhelm the camera or something:

Aside from the wooded area, before we went through more prairie we saw a really cool wall they have there. Yes, I know. Walls can only be so cool. And walls have nothing to do with wildlife or butterflies.

It was cool though. It was called a ‘serpentine’ wall. There was a sign saying something like Thomas Jefferson had designed one. I don’t know if this particular wall was based on his design or not. I should have taken a picture of the sign!

Anyway it is supposed to be sturdier. And as the name suggests, its curvy. Kind of like a zig-zag wall – only not pointy – just smooth curves instead. My husband took some pictures of it: