Graywings, beautiful! How do you collect the seeds?

ETA: I’m about to go mow the yard, will be back later. Maybe I’ll get more butterfly pictures. :)

When the flower wilts and the pod dries out, you cut the pod and let it dry further. Then you pull at it and it starts falling apart. Then you pick the seeds out. There are YouTube videos on it. Here are some of my pods and seeds. The seeds look like tiny arrowheads.

Wonderful, thank you so much.

Do these plants need much water? Very pretty!

sjerin, no, I’ve found them to be very drought-tolerant. I’m in Texas, and mine get full-on afternoon sun. They’re tough. :)

I planted a bunch more seeds around the corner from that one above:

Sorry for the awful pics, used my iPad.

Just went back out there and saw this cutie. :)

Love this, you can see the bee hovering:

Such pretty pics!! 🦋

Beautiful flowers and butterflies !

So pretty! I took photos of a Gulf Fritillary in our yard yesterday.

Thanks, everyone!

Allison, I love how they look like stained glass from underneath. :)

Stunning !! I can hardly wait til I can plant my new flower bed for next Spring. Your gardens ar3 lovely. c

Thank you, C!

I can’t wait to see what you do!

@graywings123 Thank you again — I’ve been getting seeds (DH is enjoying harvesting, too). :D

The bright yellow butterflies are Sulphurs, there are several different species.

Thanks, junco, just looked them up — that’s them! Their favorite of my plants is the Esperanza.

I have started the Mexican Sunflower and given plants to friends who have had great luck with them. So far, mine have all died before blooming. I hope I can find a place they are happy and try again. Everyone says they are such butterfly magnets.

How joyful!

Wow! So glad I decided to be lazy this morning and sit on the chromebook........open this thread and how utterly spectacular your photos are! Thank you for sharing the delight.

Jinx, your photos are beautiful. I could watch butterflies all day.

I was working in the yard this weekend and disturbed around 15 yellow sulphurs feeding on the black and blue salvia. They looked so pretty flitting around the deep indigo flowers. I tried to capture a photo but they move so fast the photo didnt really show them unless I see it in ’live’ mode. Here is one i managed to capture.

How wonderful, Outside!

I just saw this topic, love butterflies! While writing this I said I had no idea why the butterflies here are few and far between. Used to be hundreds of Monarchs would roost in our trees overnight. We'd have all kinds of butterflies. The first Monarch appeared last week & I've only seen a few.

Just now I figured out why the population of butterlies in my rural area seem to have dwindled when I heard a tractor out in the field. It was spraying the field on the other side of our fence, and all over wheat country where they're getting the ground ready to sow. And then the spraying really picks up until harvest. :(

Saw this Gulf Fritillary a bit ago going from Zinnia to Zinnia. Here's a pic, I'm in the process of pulling out half dead six feet flowers from the garden.

I need to plant zinnias next year!

@Oakley if you can leave everything til Spring. The habitat created by the dead plants is very important through the cold months and the flowers seed heads are a really important food source. The literature is full of documentation these days about clean up in Spring not Fall. 🙏👍

Trail, the two large beds have all the discarded seeds in it. Tons of Zinnia seeds. What I'm doing is pulling out the 6' high dead Cosmos stalks that are leaning and look awful. The two beds are in front of the house and the stalks have to go, and also in the beds are three Clematis that I don't cut back until Spring, and Hydrangea, along with Daylilies, and English Ivy, so there's plenty of habitat. However, I want to be able to see if a critter is out there since we're in the country and get all sorts of man eating varments. :) Seriously! Had a bobcat in the backyard that I thought was a nice kitty until I walked towards it. Coyotes scare me to death though.

Oh yes, the reason the soil is so rich in the flowerbed is because there's a couple of large Oak trees behind the house, and the leaves blow over the roof and land in the beds. I leave them put and they break down by spring.

Leaves are the best thing for flowerbeds.

Also, be sure to plant natives because the butterflies are wonderful, but you need the host plants for the larvae. Passion vine is the host plant for the Gulf Fritillary. For spring clean-up, wait until the weather and ground warms enough before removing the protection you left over winter. I don't do mine here in Northern VA until late May or June.

ETA: English ivy is a favorite of rats, Oakley! That is why I pulled mine out and continue to do so every year since it is practically impossible to eradicate. Ugh.