Thank you for sharing those, Rhonda! They are lovely and inspiring!

gawdinfever

Wow, Rhonda. You have been busy! Monarch are the only butterfly caterpillars I have seen here so far. But there are a lot. My plants just emerged when the egg laying started, so the slower growing ones like the swamp milkweeds have been completely eaten. Luckily they don’t seem to mind being moved to common. I don’t raise them inside.

Thanks gawdinfever and Iris!

Great pics Iris! Don't you just adore pictures of those cats munching away? I sure hope that your milkweed recovers quickly. I tried swamp milkweed down here with little success. It grew well where I lived in North Central Florida.

BTW, that monarch was in the cage for 5 hours after eclosing. I don't like to release them until their wings are fully pumped up and they are flying well. She was taking a while so I put a nice big penta lanceolata cutting in a bud vase for her to nectar on. When she start flying all over inside the enclosure, her hind wings were still slightly rolled but I put my finger in the cage and let her walk up. She rode it to the garden where I sat her on another penta. She ate there before flying to the lantana and milkweed. After about 10 minutes of enjoying the flowers she flew off. Loved watching her. I'm thinking that I'll probably have 3 eclose tomorrow. 🤗

I would prefer to raise them all outside but we have way too many lizards here who think of the cats as tasty snacks. I only move in a fraction of the eggs and cats because they are a lot of work when kept in the enclosures. Cats poop a LOT! I remove and clean the rubber mat every day. The enclosure that Jack made me is raised so I don't have to bend a lot and I have an eye level view for picture taking.

Okay, I knew I wanted milkweed. Now I'm going to order that and Lantana! Any other suggestions? I absolutely adore butterflies! I grow mostly flowers, so have quite a few anyway, but I'd like to tailor to their liking! I also found out swallowtails like dill, by mistake! I hae both the blue and the yellow ones.

Gawdinfever,

Glad that you're getting excited 😊 Since you're in zone 6, there's some plants that you can grow but I cant and visa versa.

Since we don't have frosts or freezes here, my plants bloom and grow all year. I do have to trim and thin them sometimes. In addition, the humidity here is horrendous so many zone 6 plants wouldn't make it here.

I grow tropical milkweed since it does well here and penta and lantana are pretty much perennial for me but would be annuals for you.

Not sure what state you're in but I'd search online for butterfly host and nectar plants for your area and USDA hardiness zone 6. Many larger universities and also state/county ag departments have info as well.

In Ohio where I was zone 5b, Joe Pye was a great nectar plant. I had many native milkweeds. Eastern swallowtails will use fennel, parsley and dill. Yarrow, asters, coneflowers, liataris, monarda, catmint, salvia and black eyed Susan were good nectar plants for me. But, I've been in Florida for 12 years and the memory isn't as good as it was.

Good luck and keep us updated.

Looking wonderful over there, Rhonda! So many successes and so much inspiration.

I have all but yarrow and liatris! (and then some, because I'm a flower freak!) lol

I also have several different butterfly bushes.

Thanks Javi! I released another female monarch this morning. She was definitely ready...flying all over inside the enclosure. I'm thinking that there will be two tomorrow morning 😊

Gawdinfever, that's great. Lots of nectar plants. You might want to search for host plants for zone 6 so you'll be able to see the entire process. Enjoy your new butterfly adventures 🦋

My new butterfly is doing great, the plants are growing and starting to
fill in after only 2 weeks in the ground. Got a weeping bottlebrush tree
today.
Released 6 monarchs from the enclosure today, that makes 8 the past few
days. Still have more monarch chrysalis in the cage plus orange-barred
sulphur cats and a chrysalis plus goldrim cats. Here's a few pics.

orange-barred sulphur between caterpillar and chrysalis

I've released 13 monarchs so far. Now, I'm focusing on the orange-barred sulphur cats and chrysalis (10 now) and gold rim swallowtail cats and chrysalis (just one now) in the enclosure.

I've been moving the orange-barred sulphur chrysalis to other containers once they're formed so I can more easily clean the containers and refresh the cassia cuttings for the remaining cats. Here's a couple of pics of some of them.

Thanks Gawdin! Raising them in enclosures does keep me somewhat busy but I really enjoy it. We've only had rain once all year and it's been an extremely warm spring so I'm having to water often. But, the plants are becoming established and rainy season should start in May so the watering will become less frequent.

I'm hoping that bottlebrush and my other plants might attract a hummingbird...they're rare as hen's teeth down here.