I’ve been reworking my front bed and have planted more milkweed, butterfly bushes, porter weed and cigar plants. The monarchs have been all over the place. I had 3 on one butterfly bush. My native milkweeds were covered in cats several weeks ago and the plant is rebounding from all the hungry little mouths. What I’m not seeing are bees.

I saw a lovely tiger swallowtail float over the backyard this past week but i mostly have gulf frits and monarch.

Do you mean atala? Auto-correct working its evil again? LOL I've never seen one of those. They're so beautiful.

Yep that’s the one!

It was unworldly!

What a good way to describe the experience. I can't imagine what it must have been like when they were so common as to be considered a big pest. They're so beautiful, especially when there's a big group all together.

When I lived in the country in SC, I had a HUGE lantana bush that circled an ancient pine tree. I called it my "butterfly bush," because dozens of butterflies would be around it all the time. I wasn't much interested in butterflies back then, but I know there were several different species.

I just found a lantana seedling this year in one of my gardens, so I transplanted it somewhere so I can see if it draws butterflies. The first year I was here, I had a very large lantana, but it didn't draw any butterflies at all.

They only seem to like certain ones, Deb. I used to have a bed with feral purple and white lantanas in it and I planted a yellow variety. Never saw a butterfly despite all the other plants in the bed until I pulled the yellow one. Then the old lantanas were always covered with butterflies. (But I don't think atalas care much about lantana, regardless of color.)

Mine was a wild pink one. I've looked for one of the wild yellow/orange ones around here, but haven't found any volunteers. I had what looked like a naturalized Dallas Red in one yard, and they loved that. It could just be that the butterflies hadn't discovered my yard yet. I didn't have much else planted at the time.

But then, I have the purple and they don't seem to like that one either.

I have an extensive butterfly garden and I see at least four or five different species within five minutes or so at peak butterfly time, which is usually late morning. The unusual thing this year is the large number of tiger swallowtails. I see two or more every day. I have noticed that they are more abundant when there has been a lot of rain. I think the very wet May might have led to the large numbers that I'm seeing.

The number one nectar plant now is the tithonia or Mexican Sunflower. After that come the pentas and the porterweeds.

I just bought some tithonia seeds, but it may be too late to plant them. I didn't have much luck with them in the past, but the soil is much richer now, so maybe I'll take a chance and plant some. I wish I had more money to spend on nectar plants, but I have to do what I can do with what I have.

Seeing a Queen is special. I have tons of Monarchs, but only see a Queen once or twice a year in my garden. It's not too late to grow tithonia. They will sprout soon and then take off. I start mine in March, put them in the ground sometime in April or so and they start blooming soon after. I will be ordering some more seeds soon to replace the ones that are growing now. They start dying in mid July and I replace them at that time. That way I have tithonias all the way to late October.

Yay!!! I love Queens. See the pic of the Queen cat in my "Helping the Monarchs" post for comparison to the Monarch cat.

Tom, I have quite a few Tithonia seeds if you want me to mail you some. Please message me your address. Thanks!

Rhonda

Tom, do you not save tithonia seeds? I usually just let one go to seed and plant those the next year.

Rhonda, I saw your post about the Queen cats. I'll definitely take those tithonia seeds! I saw your plant, and it was awesome!

I just noticed a few small holes in my milkweed leaves, but see no cats yet. They're probably microscopic right now. Can't wait to see how many I get!

Deb,

Please email or message your address and I'll send them.

I'm good with seeds, but thanks, Rhonda.

I saw my first black swallowtail just now, and a skipper this morning. Skippers are so funny! They fly like they're high on speed!

Has anyone seen any zebra longwings this year? We usually have several all summer but not a single on this year.

I live in Clermont and they are plentiful here, but they took a while to arrive. The hard freezes killed off all of them and they had to come back from those that survived in South Florida. It may be that it's taking them a while longer to arrive in the Jacksonville area. You have passion vines that attract them, Bea?

I usually see a few, but not this year. I was going to plant a passion vine last year, but never did.

Tom yes I do and it's blooming. The frits have availed themselves of its services!

I only have monarch cats so far on the milkweed. I guess that big monarch was running the queen butterfly off so she couldn't lay eggs. I'm still hoping that I'll get at least one queen. They don't lay as many eggs as Monarchs, so that makes it even more special.

If you have passion vines the Zebras should eventually show, Bea. I find that the Zebras are more likely to lay eggs on vines that are in the shade and frits more likely to lay eggs that are in the sun. Zebras, as I'm sure you know, prefer shady places.

Zebras don't show up up til later but they like my ixoria hedge.

Tom, that's interesting about the passiflora sun vs shade thing.