Melanie's Fabulous Butterfly Weekend

I don't want to be a thread hog over in the Daily thread so I figured I would just direct everyone here.

On Saturday I went to work on one of the flower beds at the front of our street. The end of summer in Florida is kind of like the end of winter in other places. Everything is dried up and dead and it's time to clear everything out for fall planting. I had bought a lot of butterfly-friendly plants. You see, I take care of the front of our street, mostly because we live on one of the corners and no one else does it. I'm thinking on my side (which is shaded by a huge oak) of planting mostly host plants. On the other side, which is in full sun, I want to plant a lot of nectar plants. So last weekend I focused on the full sun side. I planted jatropha, pentas, porterweed, sage, Stokes' aster, and milkweed. I also have echinacea and blanket flowers already growing there.


Fall is a great time for butterflies in FL and I proved it with all the species I saw. Here's the first one - our state butterfly, the Zebra Longwing.

The Polydamas stopped by. One of them left me a clutch of eggs which hatched last night.

A Sleepy Orange was checking out the porterweed.

Here's one I hadn't seen in a while - a Phaeon Crescent. It was enjoying the Spanish Needles.

Side view of the Crescent.

There were a bunch of them trying to hook up with each other. They fly around so fast they just blur on camera. But you get the idea. : )

The Gulf Frit was posing nicely on the porterweed.

Not a butterfly, but I thought it was cool. Do dragon flies come in small? I wasn't sure if that's what this guy was or if it was some other family of insect.

The Sulphurs love red flowers. I find them on the firecracker fern and the firebush, pictured here, all the time.

White Peacock from the side.

The Long-Tailed Skipper proving once again that everyone loves porterweed. I swear I have other plants in my garden!

This Dainty Sulphur let me get really close to it. Usually, they're kind of insane and rarely hold still.

The Palamedes ST enjoying my pentas. If you look, you can see the lovebug down in the flower. May and September are lovebug season here. As I was ripping out the weeds and dead plants I stirred up a swarm of them. At least they don't bite.

The Giant ST on the red pentas. Usually, it prefers the pink but it will go for either.

All of these butterflies were seen within a three-hour period on about a half-acre of land. So even if you live in the suburbs like me, you can still make your yard a butterfly paradise!

Melanie

Awww, really lovely collection you have! Do you have many down there around February? Looking at a winter vacation down there one of these years!

February tends to be our coldest month, but toward the end things might be getting started. Even at the museum I think we still had Polydamas and Monarchs at that time.