Tag Archives: milkweed

obsessed…

05 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in garden, life, moments, nature, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

maybe, just maybe, I am obsessed with the Monarchs… I can’t even think of how many times I have gone by the milkweed to check on the caterpillars, lol…

saw more butterflies landing in the plant and maybe leaving eggs;-)…

there are small caterpillars, medium sized caterpillars and large caterpillars…

such fun to see where they are on the plant and how much they have munched through…

both of the biggest caterpillars vanished this morning… I was worried they had fallen off the milkweed because they were in leaves that were bent way over…

wasn’t sure if they were getting ready for the next step, but then found both of them in the lily of the valley… so I put them back on the milkweed…

now that I’ve done some research maybe they were moving on… apparently they can travel up to ten metres away from the milkweed to move to the chrysalish stage…

if they move again I will just search to see where they end up…

molt…

04 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

it was overcast when I got up yesterday morning, but I went out before 7:30 to see what flowers were blooming and what the caterpillars were up to…

there were a bunch of morning glories and two dahlias were almost completely open…

the caterpillars were going through some of their instars… during the caterpillar stage they molt five times…

I was very excited to spot the largest one with the molt left on the leaf… after a while I noticed that another much smaller one went through the process…

this was exciting as I’d never seen this piece of the lifecycle previously…

the remainder of the day was spent quietly as I was not feeling well, so I slept and read in the shade, although I did check out the caterpillars now and again;-)…

eggs…

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

so excited to have spotted monarch eggs on the milkweed…

after a bit of research I discovered that it takes four days for them to hatch…

I’ve been checking every day to see if any have popped out… and I found some;-)… they are the teeniest little things…

I’ve watched them before, but only when they were large, so it is very cool to see them at such a small size…

a number of times each day I check over, under and around the edges of the leaves…

now I know to look under the leaves with brown spots as they don’t always eat right through the leaves at this stage… it appears they like the newest leaves as they are clearly more tender…

sometimes it is easy to spot them and other times I don’t see any, lol…

very exciting;-)…

butterfly…

24 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by in garden, life, loss, moments, nature, Photography, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

just after my friend left yesterday a monarch butterfly flew through the garden and spotted the milkweed… it landed on it a number of times… I was thrilled…

it flitted all around the space as well as flying over the house and into the neighbour’s yard…

I sat and watched for the longest time… at one point I squished the oranges on the deck so the juice might be appealing, but no luck…

after looking closely at my photos, it looks quite beaten up…

in the evening, I spotted some eggs on the milkweed… I am reminded of the year that I got some wonderful pictures of the caterpillar to butterfly stages…

so very excited… can hardly wait to see if we get caterpillars;-)…

milkweed…

08 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by in garden, life, nature, retirement, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

so happy when the plants arrived from Ron Paul Garden Centre just after nine this morning, so I didn’t have to wait around for them…

finally got milkweed and butterfly bush… took them right out into the garden and got everything into pots… one of the milkweeds already has buds;-)… hope the monarchs find them…

the butterfly bushes are quite small, but I am hopeful they will grow quickly…

also added fuchsia to one of the already planted pots and used the last few to fill a basket…

I am hoping that the garden is going to be lovely this summer as I anticipate spending lots of time there…

plants…

28 Saturday May 2016

Posted by in family, health, life, loss, nature, technology, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

early morning again, but chose a hot tub as I was awake anyway… even though it was overcast, the birds sang the entire time I was outside… lovely start to the day…

great brunch with friends at a location I hadn’t been to yet… nice… also good to catch up…

my daughter and I went to Shelmerdine to pick up the last few plants for the garden… so happy to get the butterfly bush and milkweed… while we were there picked up four shubunkins for the pond… 


these should encourage the monarchs to visit the garden this summer… hoping my grandson comes by tomorrow so he can dig these in, lol…


although all the rain has been a bit of a downer for me, all of the plants are very happy… they’ve grown tremendously in just a week…

the fish went into the winter condo as we are waiting for the tadpoles to turn into frogs before they move out to the pond…

ended the day weeding – a tiny bit – and reading in the garden…

never did rain… ended up a great day…