Raising Monarch's

GlenJ — 2010-04-03T03:10:59Z

Wife planted a bunch of butterfly bushes when we bought this house a few years ago. We've enjoyed watching Monarchs the last couple of years. With the extreme cold up here in the North Central part of the state, we were afraid that the cocoons would come to harm. Wife being the genius that she is, put together a butterfly cage on our front porch, then started clipping branches with the caterpillars on them. She placed the branches in the cage, and put a heat lamp on them every night. Well, they did, one at a time, start hanging from the top of the cage, upside down. Wife told me they kind of upchucked a green slime, which dripped down the caterpillar, and there you go, a cocoon. Pretty soon, they all turned into cocoons, and they were all hanging upside down, green goobers. After a while, one at a time, they started turning black. We were concerned, but one day one started wiggling, and lo and behold, it split open, and out popped a gorgeous monarch butterfly. It didn't move much, waiting for the wings to dry. Wife put slices of orange in the cage for it to drink. Pretty soon we had a whole bunch of monarch's. When the cage was getting full, we took it down, took it off the porch and turned them loose. All in all, we turned loose about 30 monarchs. What a blast. If you haven't tried it, go for it. It's well worth it.

Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar - You Better Be A Nice Looking Butterfly

HappyDude813 — 2010-04-27T16:04:13Z

I have had a Purple Passion Flower vine since March of 2008 on a southwest exposure trellis here in Tampa. It has done wonderfully through all seasons. Every April, when the Gulf Fritillary caterpillars come, I spend about 10 minutes a day 'eliminating' as many as I can find. This year, rather than give up at least an hour/week looking for these buggers, I decided to do some research on eradication methods, but what I found made me change course...for now. Simple Google searches will return endless threads of Q As. Everyone is looking for a way to decimate their invaders (usually with a preference for organic solutions...ha!) and someone always replies that the caterpillars and passion vines have evolved together....sure the vines will look 'TERRIBLE', but they will come back stronger and your garden will burst with butterfies. Since I approach my garden with my sights set on the long-term, this symbiosis hit home. So rather than find and smash this year, I'm going to let these prickly little creatures run their course, eat my vines and passion flowers, and watch them turn into butterflies. I hope for their sake that they are beautiful butterflies and my vine emerges healthy and vibrant later in the summer. If not, this will be their last spring getting fat off of my vines. Click the link below to see one on my vine that I hope is about ready to morph. 'http://i873.photobucket.com/albums/ab296/HappyDude813/DSC_0013.jpg'>http://i873.photobucket.com/albums/ab296/HappyDude813/DSC_0013.jpg

Butterfly gardening

Raising Monarch's

Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar - You Better Be A Nice Looking Butterfly