I'm sure that most of you butterfly fans have plenty of favorite sites, that you can research, but I wanted to share one that I just bumped into, today. This is a new passion for me, this butterfly stuff, and I've been looking for anything I could get my hands on. I'm hoping that this link will copy correctly, so that those of you that are interested, can check it out.
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/bflyusa/bflyusa.htm
Enjoy :)
PiggyPoo
A great butterfly info site
Great link.
Check out also : www.naba.org
Wow, thanks bunches!
Yes, Pp., I LUV the USgov interactive Butterfly Map. So cool.
And lots of other good stuff from the USGov site. Your tax dollars at work. At least we are getting something for our taxes we can use!
Do you have any Monarchs? If you haven't seen it already, check out the Monarch certification thread on DG. You might find it interesting and fun to get certified...
Happy (butterfly) gardening.
t.
A helpful site, Piggypoo. Especially the County Checklists. You can find a list of all butterflies that have certifiably been observed in your county. It helps a lot in planning the planting of host plants. No need to plant host plants for a butterfly that never has (and, most likely, never will visit your county). I notice in studying the list for Sarasota County, that there are way more butterflies that have visited our county sometime in the past than I have ever encountered.
I see that Sarasota is supposed to have had visits from 96 varieties of butterflies, counting 38 types of Skippers. I haven't been keeping a list but I doubt if I have seen even 16 kinds so far.
Thanks for the great link PiggyPoo. Here is a link to a site that has seriel photos of the metamorphosis process- fascinating.
http://www.paradise-jewelry.com/butterflies_caterpillars_chrysal.htm
http://www.paradise-jewelry.com/butterfly-lifecycle.htm
Maggie
Yes, those sites are very informative--I looked up our NABA area brochure http://www.naba.org/pubs/bgh.html
and it said for our area Butterfly Bushes (buddleia) doesn't work as a butterfly attractor--that many of the buddleia varieties have no nectar, etc...
that really surprised me, especially since I bought 4 last year and I have been nervously nurturing them along, hoping for a big onslaught of butterflies! Same thing for lantanas. Oh, dear!
Tabasco:
I can hardly believe what the site said about Butterfly Bushes or Lantanas. They may not grow well there. They don't grow well here. But I have seen pictures of butterflies swarming Buddlea and Lantana so it is hard for me to believe that they contain no nectar.
Yes, Ed, the Central Ohio PDF brochure said that many Buddleia varieties are not effective in attracting butterflies particularly here in Ohio. They said they were more attractive to the butterflies found in the South...
Buddleia are tender hardy plants here...you have to cut them back and mulch to keep them going...
Well, I'll keep an eye out on my bushes and see what alights on them! (-:
That's weird. Why would butterflies from one area like them more than another?? They all love mine, thus I'm panicking to keep them alive!
And Ed, you are lucky to have seen 16 types of Skippers! I could have seen more than 2 or 3, but they seem to look alike to me. lol
Hey! I didn't say I had seen 16 types of skippers. I was saying that I have seen perhaps 16 types of butterflies altogether, maybe!! What I was trying to say is that of the 96 kinds of butterflies that have been documented to have visited Sarasota, I have only seen 16.7% of them or one sixth of the number possible. That means a lot of other kinds out there yet to discover.
Oh I am sooooo excited. The chrysalis that I thought was all dried up (because I'd never seen one before) emerged this morning!!! And..just last Friday, I went and splurged, and bought myself a digital camera. Didn't know what the heck I was doing with it, but last night, I sat here at my desk playing with the super macro, and it was a good thing I did, because this is what I saw when I went outside this morning!!
Yippeeeeee :)
LOL I was so excited, that I didn't even want to go to work, but I had to, so I emailed the picture to myself and kept it up on my screen all day, and have it set as my wallpaper here at home.
Can't tell that I was too excited, can you? Does it show? LOL
PiggyPoo :)
PiggyPoo, you are officially addicted!!
Congratulations Piggypoo......I'd have been as giddy as you were :-)
-julie
Buddleia davidi,the butterfly bush sold in nurseries everywhere,is definitely a butterfly magnet!! Some varieties of this species are not as attractive to butterflies as others,but I think they are all excellent nectar plants.I've had one for about ten years now,and this is the first year it has completely died back to the ground.It's growing like a weed though,and should be blooming in 2-3 weeks.
Hi Konkrete and Ed...good to see you here.I just surfed on in from you-know-where.
And I wouldn't have known you except for that town name!! Welcome aboard!!!
tabsaco, I have a butterfly bush and lots of other plants butterflies and hummers are supposed to like. My hummingbird won't go to ANYTHING except my salvia greggi, and my butterflies won't touch anything except the coneflowers and purple verbena. Which are both right next to the butterfly bush. Go figure.
Except that today a white butterfly managed to find an agastache flower that wasn't covered in bees:
Beautiful shot of the Butterfly on the Agastache!
Ditto! I was just out looking at my Agastache...it's not looking so good. It came back from last year and grew really good, bloomed, and now it's wilty and one branch died. It does have a new shoot tho that looks like it's separate from the original plant.
Beautiful pic!
I have 10 butterfly bushes. And all the butterflies and moths in my yard seem to like them. They also like the bee balm and the cone flowers. I even had a monarch on my delphinium today. My dad laughs at me, he says if it says that butterflies or hummingbirds will like it, than I will buy it. And he's pretty much on target. :) I don't seem to have much luck with yarrow, though. They keep dying on me, and they don't seem to draw anything to them before they croak.