A new butterfly garden

I find work and home gardening and garden outreach intertwined often. But I'm totally enthused about our new Butterfly Garden site (an expansion of the Children's Garden) at the botanical garden where I work.

We've had a Butterfly Garden for many years, but it was not a good site (on a hill, windy, and in poor soil). So relocating it in a sheltered site below established Children's Garden plantings (the Ethnobotany Garden, the Peter Rabbit Garden, and the Food for Thought Garden), makes a lot of sense.

We'll be putting plants in the ground tomorrow, hooray! I'm totally thrilled about it. This was my post on our not-official garden blog.

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Ready for caterpillars

Monarchs favor milkweeds, but definitely have favorites within milkweed species.

Showy butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, a relatively common milkweed in the Southeastern U.S., is a great nectar plant for many insects, but isn't really a favorite here for female monarchs to lay eggs (and therefore support caterpillars).

The story of monarchs, their very specific host plants, and how the alkaloids that they ingest help them deter predation is fascinating, and their migration incredible.

But Asclepia syriaca, Common Milkweed, is definitely preferred in our Southeastern gardens. I've put in lots of transplants, thanks to my friends who are butterfly enthusiasts like me, and now my plants are waiting for females to lay eggs.

Here's a photo of monarch caterpillars on common milkweed a couple of years ago in a perennial border at the Garden.

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