Butterfly Lady – Page 22 – Education, Gardening and Fun: Spreading the Joy of Butterflies to Everyone!

Judi’s Butterfly Garden

My friend, Judi, has created an absolute butterfly paradise in her backyard in Palm Bay, Florida, USA. She started butterfly gardening in 2008 in just one small section. Today her whole yard has been converted to a butterfly habitat that attracts a wide variety of butterflies.

Judi's Butterfly Signs — Bright and lovely signs greet visitors. **Click here** to view a selection of delightful butterfly garden signs for your own yard.

Butterfly Walkway Entices Visitors — Butterfly stepping-stones on the walkway lead to the garden. **Click here** to see whimsical butterfly stepping stones.

Butterfly Backyard — Judi’s backyard is furnished with stylish and functional butterfly-themed patio furniture. **Click here** to see a nice selection of available butterfly patio benches, chairs and tables.

**Zebra Longwings** (*Heliconius charithonia)*, **Julias** (*Dryas iulia*) and **Gulf Fritillaries** (*Agraulis vanillae*) are attracted to **Passion Vines** (Passiflora spp.) as both nectar- and host-plants. Judi has planted them throughout her garden to make it irresistible.

Zebra Longwing Caterpillar on Passion Vine — **Zebra Longwing** caterpillar eating a leaf of **Citrus-Yellow Passion Flower** (Passiflora citrina) which Judi purchased at world-famous **Butterfly World** in Coconut Creek, Florida.

Wild Lime and Fennel — The **Wild Lime** (*Zanthoxylum fagara*) in the back left is covered with **Giant Swallowtail** (*Papilio cresphontes*) caterpillars. A patch of **Fennel** (*Foeniculum vulgare*) in the foreground feeds **Eastern Black Swallowtail** (*Papilio polyxanthes*) caterpillars.

Monarchs (Danaus plexippus) find Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) as well as native Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). She has Dutchman’s Pipe (Aristolochia spp.) for the Polydamas Swallowtails (Battus polydamas) and Pipevine (Aristolochia spp.) for the Pipevine Swallowtails (Battus philenor). I even found a cute little Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) caterpillar on her Spicebush (Lindera benzoin).

Spicebush Caterpillar — **Spicebush Swallowtail** caterpillar on a **Spicebush** leaf, its host-plant.

Adirondack Chairs and Hackberry Tree — Adirondack chairs invite passing a relaxing afternoon in the shade of the **Hackberry Tree** (*Celtis spp.*), a host-plant for the **Hackberry Emperor** (*Asterocampa celtis*) butterfly.

Spicebush on Penta — **Spicebush Swallowtail** butterfly on **Penta** (Pentas lanceolata).

A variety of flowers such as Pentas, Porterweed (Stachytarpheta jamaicensis) and Firebush (Hamelia patens) provide nectar for all these attractive native butterflies.

Julias Nectaring on Zinnias — Even small pots of **Zinnias** (Zinnia spp.) invite the butterflies, such as these **Julias**.

Queen and Julia Sipping Rotten Fruit — **Queen** (Danaus gilippus) butterfly, left, and a **Julia** butterfly, right, enjoying a rotten banana offered in a suet basket. **Click here** for various suet baskets for your own garden.

Julia Puddling on Wet Stepping Stone — **Julia** puddling on a wet stepping stone.

Judi, with help from her husband, Greg, certainly has accomplished “brightening the world one butterfly at a time.”

Check out her Facebook page where you can see more photos of her garden and find helpful information.

Rooftop View of Judi's Garden — Bird’s-eye View of Judi’s Butterfly Garden • Photo courtesy of **JudisButterflies.com**

Raising Black Swallowtail Butterflies for Fun

One of my favorite butterflies to raise is the Eastern Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes). It’s an easy species to attract to your garden. You just need to provide their host plants on which the females lay their eggs, including Dill, Fennel, Parsley, Rue or Golden Alexander and they will find them.

Eastern Black Swallowtail and Host Plants — The beautiful **Eastern Black Swallowtail** (*Papilio polyxenes*) butterfly and five of its host plants, including common herbs: Dill, Fennel, and Parsley.

Female Eastern Black Swallowtail ovipositing — Female **Eastern Black Swallowtail** butterfly ovipositing an egg on **Fennel**. Look closely at the end of her abdomen. Can you see the cream-colored egg?

Eastern Black Swallowtail Eggs — **Eastern Black Swallowtail** butterfly eggs on **Rue** and Fennel leaves.

Once you find the eggs or tiny caterpillars, remove the leaves or pieces of the plant they are on and place them inside a small plastic cup with a lid. This keeps the tiny caterpillars from escaping.) Do not punch holes.

You can purchase 2-ounce or 9-ounce cups at most grocery stores or click on the link to order them online: https://amzn.to/2BmTy2Y

Keep them inside the cup until after they hatch and for a few days. Then you can place them inside a larger container. I like to use salad containers from fast-food restaurants, but you can use any container with a lid. I use a pushpin to punch air holes in the lid. Line the bottom of the container with a paper towel or coffee filter. Be sure to provide plenty of the host plant leaves on which you found the eggs and/or caterpillars.

Use a pushpin to punch air holes in the lid of the container.

Salad Container Repurposed as a Butterfly Habitat — This easy-to-assemble habitat is nothing more than a fast-food salad container lined with a coffee filter. A few holes punched in the top with a push pin complete the project. These **Eastern Black Swallowtail** caterpillars are dining on **Curly Parsley**.

Caterpillar Condo — I call this my caterpillar condo.

Check on your caterpillars each day to make sure they have enough food to feast on. Once they get bigger you will need to empty the fecal droppings (known as frass) each day and add a new coffee filter or paper towel plus fresh food.

Caterpillar Frass — Caterpillars make a mess! Be sure to **clean your cage every day** to keep your caterpillars healthy and happy.

When they are ready to pupate, they will crawl to the top of the lid and make their chrysalis. Many people like to put sticks inside the container for them to use, but that is not necessary. However, it can be fun to see the different colors the chrysalis becomes.

Pupating Caterpillars — The caterpillar will crawl to the top and spin a silk girdle on the container lid before it sheds its skin for the final time.

Chameleon-like Pupae — Chameleon-like, the **Eastern Black Swallowtail** caterpillar will pupate with colors that match its surroundings in order to camouflage itself.

A newly-emerged female Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly ready for its first flight

It usually takes about two weeks for the butterfly to emerge from the chrysalis. You can then experience the joy of holding and releasing your new butterfly.

Butterflies and Fruit

Adding a fruit feeder to your butterfly garden can help attract butterflies. Many butterflies do not live on flower nectar alone. Some species prefer, even require, overripe fruit to feed on. Butterflies are particularly fond of sliced, rotting oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, peaches, nectarines, apples, and bananas.

By placing sliced oranges and watermelon inside a suet bird feeder you can make this simple butterfly feeder.

IMG_3992 copy.jpg.jpg — A couple of **Painted Lady** (*Vanessa cardui*) butterflies enjoy sips of sweet fruit juice on a summer afternoon. • **Click here** or on photo to view a variety of suet baskets.

This easily-assembled butterfly feeder is a clay saucer with sliced cantaloupe that was positioned on top of a hanging plant basket. It was hung in a Plum Tree (Prunus spp.), which happens to be a host plant for the Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis) seen feeding here.

hanging_fruit copy.jpg — A **Red-spotted Purple** (*Limenitis arthemis*) butterfly sipping juice from a cantaloupe.

My friend, Jill Streit-Murphy of Building a Butterfly Garden, hangs out a rotten banana in her garden. There are so many butterflies you can’t even see the fruit!

13164343_950414048409747_3207105556850767812_n — A mass of **Hackberry Emperor** (*Asterocampa celtis*) butterflies marauding a rotting banana still in its peel. • Copyright by Jill Streit-Murphy. Used with permission.

Half an orange on a deck railing attracted this Viceroy (Limenitis archippus) butterfly. viceroy_orange

Keep ants at bay by hanging your butterfly feeder with an ant guard. Whether you use the kind shown here with a small bit of pesticide tucked inside where it doesn’t come in contact with the butterflies or the type that you keep filled with water and a few drops of cooking oil, ant guards are essential equipment when using butterfly feeders.

IMG_2694 copy — An ant guard is an essential equipment when using a butterfly feeder. **Click here** or on photo to view a variety of ant guards.

A hanging birdbath makes a perfect place to place fruit to attract butterflies. Click here or on photo for a variety of birdbaths.

Spread the message with this “Plant Milkweed T-shirt by Butterfly Lady: https://amzn.to/2PFvZn4

“I have been transformed.”

What does a butterfly have to do with serving in the U.S. Peace Corps? As a Peace Corps Response volunteer from July 2014 to March 2015, I had the opportunity to raise thousands of butterflies for an exhibit in El Salvador.

A **Giant Swallowtail** (*Papilio cresphontes*) butterfly nectars on **Porterweed** (*Stachytarpheta jamaicensis*) in El Salvador.

El Salvador is still recuperating from a devastating civil war that wracked the country from 1980 to 1992, leaving at least 75,000 people dead and tens of thousands more displaced. My site, Segundo Montes, is a community made up of five towns in the eastern department of Morazán, formed in 1990 by repatriated refugees who fled the country’s civil war.

Teaching about Host Plants — Suzanne Tilton demonstrates the importance of butterfly host plants in the *Mariposario Turístico Almirante de Morazán*, a large butterfly enclosure in El Salvador.

After nearly a decade in refugee camps in Honduras, residents returned en masse 25 years ago to reclaim their livelihoods and dignity. I wanted to help this once-war-torn community’s iconography transform itself from memories of combat fatigues to fluttery symbols of peace and hope.

When I arrived at the Mariposario Turístico Almirante de Morazán, I was thrilled to see the abundance and variety of butterflies – from Blue Morphos (Morpho peleides) to Zebra Longwings (Heliconius charithonia) and everything in between – flying in the gardens outside. It was a delightful sight and I knew immediately that I had arrived where I belonged.

The butterfly exhibit was built in 2008 as an agricultural project to raise butterflies but, within two years, it was abandoned due to lack of knowledge and support on how to raise and manage the rearing of butterflies. My job as an Educational Butterfly Farm Management Specialist was to train butterfly wranglers how to cultivate butterflies and maintain a healthy habitat for them inside the exhibit.

Dressing up as a butterfly — A delightful child visiting the butterfly zoo has dressed up as a butterfly.

I also visited several primary and secondary schools to teach the life cycle of butterflies and why they’re important for the mountainous environment. Children had the chance to hold and observe up close live specimens in the forms of eggs, caterpillars, chrysalises and adult butterflies. I used props to dress up the children as caterpillars, butterflies, and moths. They cheered in delight when we released butterflies at the end of the presentation and watched them fly freely into the sky.

I knew I was having an impact when parents would stop me in the community and share that they had learned all about butterfly metamorphosis from their children.

One of the highlights of my experience in El Salvador was a weekend visit by 50 students from the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City, who came across the border to learn butterfly biology and butterfly zoo management with an emphasis on environmentally friendly sustainability.

There is a concerted effort to develop tourism along the Ruta de Paz (Peace Highway) from Morazán’s capital of San Francisco Gotera to El Salvador’s border with Honduras, along Highway 7. The butterfly zoo is strategically located along this route and is well-positioned to attract the attention of vacationers headed to the cool air and brilliant sunshine of Perquín, eight miles farther north.

Teaching about butterflies — Teaching a class on butterfly biology in El Salvador.

At 4,000 feet in elevation, Perquín is a popular destination of Salvadorans fleeing the heat and humidity of the coast and tropical lowlands. As time goes by, it is hoped that the Mariposario Turístico Almirante de Morazán will play its part in entertaining and educating tourists on the beauty of butterflies while it continues to contribute to the economic well-being of the community.

A visitor to the butterfly zoo experiences the joy of holding a **Tiger Longwing** (*Heliconius hecale*).

In conjunction with the nascent tourism industry, I was privileged to make presentations and conduct field trips for university students studying tourism and hospitality at the nearby Technical Institute of Father Segundo Montes.

I experienced such a feeling of joy and satisfaction as I watched mesmerized visitors hold a butterfly for the first time.

Just as a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, I have been transformed into a different person by serving as a Peace Corps Response volunteer.

Learning about the different parts of a butterfly. — Learning about the different parts of a butterfly; including compound eyes, hearing sensors, proboscis, and wings.

Editor’s Note: This post was written and originally published in Peace Corps Passport, the U.S. Peace Corps’ official blog, on 22 April 2015 to commemorate Earth Day.

Flowers for Fall-Migrating Monarch Butterflies

One of the surest ways to see fall-migrating Monarch butterflies is to plant flowers that attract them. Monarchs will drop from the sky for the nectar they need for energy during fall migrations.

**Monarch** (*Danaus plexippus*) on **Lantana** (*Lantana camara*). Photo courtesy Tiago J. G. Fernandes. Used with permission.

The Monarchs will search for nectar plants the entire time they are traveling to their winter roosting sites in Mexico. Gardens can provide a place for the migrating monarchs so they can refuel and continue their journey. Help Monarchs by planting flowers that bloom late into the fall such as the flowers listed below.

Asters (Aster spp.) are a favorite of Monarchs (Danaus plexippus) in the fall, particularly the New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae).

Monarch on aster — **Monarch** nectaring on **Aster**.

Sunflowers (Helianthus spp.), including Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia) and Swamp Sunflowers (Helianthus angustifolius) are late bloomers and provide nectar for migrating Monarchs.

**Monarch** nectaring on **Swamp Sunflower**. Photo courtesy LuGene Peterson. Used with permission.

Many Lantanas are still blooming. I had several Monarchs stop in late October in my North Carolina, USA, garden to sip the nectar from ‘Miss Huff’ Lantana (Lantana camara ‘Miss Huff’)

**Monarch** butterfly nectaring on **‘Miss Huff’ Lantana**.

Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) is a wonderful fall blooming perennial and is one of the major nectar sources for the Monarchs’ trip back to Mexico.

The brilliant purple-crimson bloom of Ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata) is very attractive to Monarchs. See some spectacular photos of Monarchs on Ironweed at the Flower Hill Farm Retreat.