Hi everyone! I just wanted to make everyone aware that the USF Botanical Gardens in Tampa, FL will be having their annual Butterfly and Herb Festival on June 9 and 10. It's $4 to get in, free for members of the garden. They always have tons of vendors selling butterfly plants. It's fun to watch the butterflies going crazy through the garden! I guess it must feel like Christmas for them. They also have guests talk about how to attract butterflies to your garden. One of the main features is a huge tent filled with butterflies that you can go in; It's always fun for the kids. Hope to see some of you there! I'll be sure to take pictures of all the butterflies for those who don't live in the area.
Here's a link to the gardens' website: http://www.cas.usf.edu/garden/
Butterfly and Herb Festival
Well, I went to the festival today and got lots of new plants to tempt the butterflies with. Pipevine, passiflora caerula, Stokes' Asters, sparkleberry, buttonbush, and fringetree. Whew! The butterflies were going crazy with all their favorite plants around. One of the best features of the festival is the butterfly house where you can see them up close, and even feed them! Of course, I took lots of pictures for everyone. I didn't want to take over the daily butterfly thread with all my pictures, so here they are:
These passion flowers came with their own built-in caterpillars!
The Painted Ladys were being very friendly.
They kept landing on everyone, especially my mom.
Here's a little white one, not sure which guy he is.
Her highness, the queen
A tattered and torn little white bf
There's four bfs in this picture, can you find them all? : )
Here's a good photo of the white one
Julia
Yummy!
mellie--beautiful photos! Sounds like a fun visit to the bf display! And what a haul you made on the plants!
Hope to see more pics when that caterpiller becomes a butterfly! What kind is it? Maybe something rare from the exhibit?
Here's a shot of the inside of the tent so you can get a feel for how many bfs there were. The zebra longwings kept hanging out in the corners.
Hi tabasco, the cat is a Gulf Fritillary. They're pretty common in my yard. The love my Tampa Verbena (glandularia tampensis).
Here's another view of the inside. The ZL did come down to visit too.
The best part was feeding time! They passed out q-tips dipped in red Gatorade. Mom fed her little friend.
I found this Julia in the bottom of a pot of lantana looking kind of sad. After I was done feeding it, I left her on a lantana blossom and she was happily drinking.
Lovely! Reminds me of a butterfly exhibit that came to the little Brevard Zoo last year. So many butterflies that I couldn't believe it! They were landing everywhere and were a photographers dream! Great shots!!! Looks like you had a great time!!!
These bfs are so spoiled!
I think this is a White Peacock
posted wrong picture, let me try again...
This message was edited Jun 9, 2007 5:41 PM
Here I go again:
After I left the tent (which was soooo hot), I went over to the butterfly garden section of the botanical gardens. I saw many Black Swallowtails, and I think Mom and I saw a Red-Spotted Purple. We were both like, "Oooooh". There was a guy selling a plant called "soursop" as an alternative to the pawpaw for the Zebra Swallowtail. I know ZSTs might seem rare around here, and he had a point about their native pawpaws being destroyed to make way for the newest subdivision or shopping mall, but I do see many of them in the preserves. I'm going to get some pawpaws soon and boost the population for everyone!
Anyway, as I was walking around the butterfly garden, right smack dab in the middle was a gopher tortoise peeking out of his home! I love these guys, and I suppose he's like the "watchdog" for the butterflies.
Interesting about the soursop being an alternative for the paw-paw. Will have to look into that for bfs around here, although I think we have a good supply of paw-paws.
Very pretty pics. And interesting about the gatorade on Q-tips!
Sounds like you had a fun day! And even a tortoise!
Wow, that looks like fun! Great pictures!
I am going to the Butterfly Rainforest with some friends coming to visit me at the end of the month and now after seeing your photos I cant wait! I will be sure and take photos also!
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/butterflies/
Well mellie, you talked me into going tomorrow. : ) Love the photos.
~Lucy
And it was only $1 to get in the butterfly house! There were also some great deals on plants. I bought most of mine from the Suncoast Native Plant Society. I always like buying from local clubs because I know they support the same things I do, and they're really out there to spread the word about great plants, not to make money. I mean, it's all right to make money, but I like people who balance that out with a true passion for plants. I got 5 Stokes' Aster for $5 each, a sparkleberry for $5, the fringe tree was $10, and the buttonbush was $5. In the back of the gardens was a guy that I've seen at the fall and spring plant festivals. He has a lot of different plants and several types of passion vines, but I've always thought he came across as a bit of a jerk, and his prices are a little high. He had the pipevine I wanted, but I wanted to visit all the vendors first. Good thing I did because the vine he was selling for $20, I got for $5! As I shopped, Mom watched the cart for me and so many people kept coming up and asking her about the pipevine. It is definitely a different looking plant!
USF was selling lots of plants in their own plant shop, and I got my passion vine for $15 and a pink brugmansia for $5. It was also fun seeing all the kids having a great time. I saw more than one little girl dressed up as a butterfly (wings and all). Besides the butterfly house they had a caterpillar petting zoo and I heard the guy there explaining all about the different ones and what butterflies they turn into. Kids these days seem so out of touch with nature so it was nice to see them interacting and learning.
Glad everyone likes the pics; I had lots of fun taking them!
Melanie
Thanks for the info. I'll watch out for the jerk in the back...lol : )
Oh, Melie, that is sooooo cool! I cannot believe how great all those plants look all "growing" together (in the pics with the ZLs) Do you know the names of them? I think I see a verbena and a Salvia Victoria, but I don't kow the others. If I were there I would have just said, "I'll take these" and taken the whole display home!
Can you identify the plant in this picture?
http://davesgarden.com/forums/fp.php?pid=3595805
The Red Gatorade on qtips was my favorite -- what a hoot, for adults and kids alike.
Becky, When is the Brevard Zoo's Butterfly exhibit this year? My friend lives about a mile from there.
Suzy
Hi Suzy - It is a traveling exhibit, so don't know if/when it will be back. :-( Though I do know Rockledge Gardens provided most of the plants and set it up. They have a caged in butterfly exhibit at their plant nursery that you can walk through and see the butterflies on the different plants. But it was nothing like the exhibit at the zoo! That was amazing how many butterflies they had in there and they also had a hatchery for butterflies so you could see their chyrsalises. They, too, had different people working at the exhibit to explain things to everyone. I went with the teacher I work with and my daughter. We were IDing most of the butterflies between us. The next thing we knew there were a couple people asking US questions! LOL Having a butterfly garden at our school has educated us, so we knew all about most of the live butterflies in the exhibit. lol And before we left, one of the guides came over and started asking us questions, too! It was so funny!!! Everyone was wanting to know what other plants they used that could be grown in our area. I wonder how many hit the plant nursery after they left the zoo. I like to think that some of those folks will go home and put in a butterfly garden, too! Wouldn't that be cool! The exhibit was very nice, so it was an easy sell to get folks interested. :-) Since then the local paper has run several articles about Butterfly Gardening! So ....... it was great!!
BTW - Rockledge Garden Nursery is just about 15-20 miles north of the Brevard Zoo on US1. If your friend hasn't been there, she/he should check it out! It's worth the trip!
This message was edited Jun 10, 2007 7:22 AM
Suzy, you'd have been in trouble because all of those plants were for sale! I'm not too sure about that purple one; I thought it was a kind of salvia. Feel free to post any of my pictures in the plant ID forum and see if someone can help out. Some of the other plants I know were in there: several colors of lantana, milkweed, firebush, pipevine, and the sage you mentioned. It really does look like a smorgasbord for butterflies doesn't it?
I think maybe there's some pentas and porterweed in there too.
Mellie,
Thanks so much for the heads up.I went and got some plants and took in the Butterfly house.What a hoot.I got to meet and talk to the owner of Greathouse Butterfly Farms.what a wealth of information he was.They are up east of Gainesville and are open everyday.They sell everything for and about butterflies so an excellant source for all of us with this addiction. Also got me a nice big pot of pineapple sage,I've been looking for that stuff for the last six months and now finally got some.
I also had a great time today, thanks mellie. Saw Don there. We listened to a guy talk about herbs. : ) There were lots of beautiful plants and herbs for sale. Had a fun time feeding the butterflies. And the freshmade lemonade really hit the spot.
My purchases:
Pipevine
'Pink Pop' agastache
'Sapphire Blue' Salvia
Bat-face Cuphea
Buddleia davidii (white)
Verbena
Black-Eyed Susan (coneflower type)
Cost.....$30
Nice Day! : )
~Lucy
Ok, thanks! You guys have been talking about Porterweed and Pentas for ages, but I still have never seen them in person.
No butterflies here...maybe a Red Admiral and big white one scoping things out, but not staying.
I have a lot of named Calendula blooming now -- plenty to catch their eyes, but I'm thinking the hybrids are pollenless or nectarless or something because they aren't even giving them a cursory taste.
Agastache will bloom this week, maybe that will do it.
Suzy