Progress made

Oh, best laid plans...gardeners are as familiar as anybody with that promise of "gang aft agley".  At least, I am.

I dug out garlic chives aplenty, transplanted some and passed others along to gardener friends.  I trimmed verbena and dug out Jewels of Opar.  I planted a couple of passalong Henry Duelberg Salvias, then bought and planted more.  I put in tropical milkweed.

I put in more tropical milkweed.

All in pursuit of monarch butterflies.

For whatever reason, that, the attraction and support of monarchs, was the shape "what being a good gardener looks like" took for me this past year.   I was already doing much better in the attracting bees and other pollinators department. Maybe I was just looking for a fresh challenge.

I watched and I waited and saw one monarch.  The butterfly was nectaring on a lantana way across the yard from my especially prepared and well monitored monarch attracting and supporting bed.  It fed there on the lantana (not even a native variety!) for some time and then it exited, stage South.

It seemed the attracting part of that new and improved bed proved itself pretty much a bust.  It naturally follows the supporting part never really came into play.  But I was ready! In case! Partial credit for that.

Even without butterflies overhead I am smitten with the dance the leaves of various pre-eixsting occupants are doing.  Stalwarts of the bed shown above: bluebonnet, mint, verbena and wood sorrel.

Progress has been made, the newer plants are filling in, blooming, and holding their own.  Lack of monarch visits notwithstanding, I think the resulting bed looks pretty attractive.  To me.  The gardener.  I flutter around here a lot.

PS:  As I was editing this I spotted a monarch hovering over this bed.   I asked The Hub.  "Do you see what I see?".  He did, and he said he'd seen a monarch around that bed yesterday as well.

So, shut up.

With apologies to the Rolling Stones

Because you can't always get what you want...

What I wanted, was monarch butterflies.  Monarchs are in trouble as you are probably already aware. Each year they migrate through our area, and I wanted, very much, to be part of some solution I imagine we gardeners might be able to offer.

I bought a handful of tropical milkweed plants having been told that butterflies prefer to nectar at groups of flowers rather than singletons.  I fretted over and brushed off and squished the yellow aphids that seemed even more inexorably and immediately attracted to these plants than any butterflies.

I thought to myself "if it was aphids I was after, I'd consider this a stunning success".  But it is not and was not aphids I wanted.  I was happy to notice a ladybug going after the aphids but that was a consolation prize, not the main event.  Monarchs.  MONARCHS.  Send in the butterflies!

That is when I noticed this beauty out back.  A Papilio thoas (I think), otherwise known as a King Swallowtail butterfly.

These graceful large butterflies like to nectar on lantana, which I have scads of, and they preferentially oviposit on citrus trees.  We have four Meyer lemon trees out back, and also a makrut lime (called "kaffir" by some. As that is a derogatory term in several cultures, "makrut" is now the favored name).

Rather than having to go out and buy anything, I already have growing here in abundance just what this lovely butterfly needs and wants to support its life cycle.

Did I do that on purpose?  Nope, that is just the way the cards played out.  I wanted to attract butterflies and it turns out I have.  Just not the ones I expected.  In fact, as opposed to the potentially threatened migratory monarch butterflies, experts have noted the range and numbers of the Giant Swallowtail are increasing as they expand further northward following the higher temperature averages.

Wouldn't you flee to Canada in August if you could?  Yup.  Me too.

At the end of the day, I still am optimistic I'll attract a few southerly migrating monarchs to stop by the tropical milkweed I am trying to get established for them.  There are blooms in sight, along with more aphids...

Failing any Fall visitors, I'll be watching eagerly for drop ins when the monarch butterfly masses leave Mexico to head north once more next year. In the meantime?  I'm determined to fully enjoy the near daily visits of the Giant Swallowtail.  In the absence of monarchs, I'll consider the swallowtail visits to be just exactly what I need.


This post is part of Wildlife Wednesday, an attempt to raise our specific appreciation of not just the flora but also the fauna populating our outdoor spaces.  Thanks as always to Tina of "My Gardener Says" for hostessing!