Welcome! This blog is mostly about butterfly gardening, but other types of plants and gardens, as well as
other wildlife is blogged about too.
I saw my first Monarch just a few minutes ago! I couldn’t get a picture of it, it wouldn’t sit still, but was definitely a female looking for a place to lay eggs.
So I went and took a look at what little milkweed is coming up so far. And guess what? I found eggs on my purple milkweed and whorled milkweed! Unfortunately, I just started pages on those 2 plants recently too, so I can’t give you much information about them yet.
Last year, I found the first Monarch eggs in my garden on the 24th – so its 2 days earlier this year! And on Earth Day too!
Here is a picture of the purple milkweed – its just barely sticking out of the ground. I can’t wait tilll it blooms – its my favorite milkweed flower! The eggs aren’t visible, they were on the other side.
On the whorled milkweed you might be able to make out the eggs if you click on the picture to see it bigger.
I found the first set of Monarch eggs in my garden this year today. They had to be laid sometime later this afternoon, because earlier I checked and didn’t see any yet.
I’ve now had three species of butterflies lay eggs this year already. Some Black Swallowtails a while back, duskywings on Sunday and now today, Monarchs.
The eggs are on a few different species of milkweed – swamp, common, purple, whorled and one other one that I need to look up which milkweed it is again. I forgot to check the butterfly weed (A. tuberosa) – just realized that, I’ll check later.
And I haven’t forgotten to get some pictures on here, but just haven’t had time yet!
– Update – I checked – yes, eggs were laid on the Butterfly Weed (A. tuberosa) also! And later I saw a Tiger Swallowtail flying around the garden, first I’ve seen in our yard this year.
