Pretty. I'm starting to get some to now.

I'm glad the butterflies are showing up. We always have tons of them here, and the swallowtails are my favorites. You can never have too many butterflies. I've always made sure to grow lots of plants for the hummingbirds, butterflies, moths and other creatures. My favorite thing about working in the garden isn't just being outside in the garden, but also being able to share the garden with all kinds of wild things and to watch them and listen to them while I work. Today there was a rough green tree snake wrapped around a canna lily leaf, and as I watched it for a while, it became apparent the snake was meticulously searching the underside of each leaf looking for something to eat.

I try to have something for the butterflies and moths (both nectaring plants and food for their larvae) available year-round, although the winter months can be challenging. Sometimes when I see bees and butterflies out in January and February I have to scramble to come up with something for them to eat and drink.

I always make mud puddles in our gravel driveway, too, so they can do their puddling.

My all-time favorite butterfly moment here wasn't in the garden, though. Around our 3rd or 4th year here, the migrating monarchs spent the night one night on a huge dead elm tree that sat on the edge of our woodland. I looked out the bedroom window around sunset, and it looked like the tree had suddenly sprouted tons of leaves. We went outside and looked at it, and the "leaves" were hundreds, if not thousands, of monarchs settling in for the night. We watched them on that tree until it was too dark to see them. The next morning, I was up early so I could watch them take off and continue on the southbound journey. We have seen them migrating in many other years, although the last couple of years they veered west before making it this far south, and there have been times we've seen a lot of them, but we've never seen them overwintering here since that night. It was just magical.

It is magical isn't it to witness it all first hand. Kinda throws the brakes on for me. Growing up in fast paced cities I sometimes have a hard time slowing down. I am learning
When I lived at Greenwood we had a tree and the hummingbirds loved that tree. When they came it was like you said the whole thing came alive. It was an amazing site.
My little grandson saw his first butterfly the other day and he just kept following it and calling to me to come look until it was long out of site.
kim

I didn't want to start another post so I hope someone sees this. I have a huge beautiful volunteer squash plant, looks like zucchini, not one female flower yet. Should I fertilize or is it messed up since its a volunteer, maybe crossed?
kim

If you are seeing male flowers and not female flowers, that is pretty normal. Often (though not always, and I don't know why is happens only sometimes) they put out a bunch of male flowers first, sometimes for up to two weeks, and then they start making female flowers. This likely is a process intended to guarantee that once the female flowers do show up, there are lots of male flowers available to pollinate them.

If you do want to fertilize, be sure to use a bloom booster fertilizer to encourage more flowering. I use Super Bloom when I am trying to force something to bloom at a particular point....like, for example, when we get a cool front and rain during a hot summer when the tomatoes are setting fruit due to the heat. If you use a bloom booster from a few days to a week or two in advance of the cold front, you often get great blooming and fruitset during that cooler weather. I don't necessarily think you need to do that with this plant. Since it is setting male flowers, we know it can and will bloom. I think that you likely will see female flowers soon, even without the use of any sort of fertilizer.

It might be crossed and you won't know what you are going to get until it actually forms a fruit.

Sometimes volunteer plants are what we call "mules" because they are sterile. That even can happen occasionally with tomatoes grown from purchased seed, so I just think of it as a rare biological phenomenon. With the tomato mules I've had, though, you just get cotyledons forever and ever---several weeks to a couple of months---and no further growth or development. I just yank those out and throw them on the compost pile. I've never seen it happen with squash plants though. I get lots of volunteer cucurbits in my garden, especially Seminole pumpkins and Armenian cukes and generally they grow and produce perfectly fine. My squash plants are obstinate and won't bloom while I am watching them. If I ignore them for a few days, though, they'll go wild and then by the time I discover the fruit, it is overly large.

Dawn

Oh I hope it is not a mule. LOL
It has at least 20 male flowers so hopefully by time I get back home Sunday night I will see females. The cool rain is so nice. I will look for bloom booster in Turkey. They might have it. Thanks and I hope you are getting some of this rain. Maybe we could get everyone in Gainesville to point their fans at you , blow it up there.

kim