I can't believe it!

Well I'll have a little chat with them... but it may take until Nov. Lol. ;)

LOL, it's the thought that counts. Thanks.

Wow, M., pretty exciting about your early Monarch! Very impressive. Congratulations! I think you're going to have a great BF season!

I have been keeping a sharp eye out around here and I think I may have seen one Monarch butterfly last month. Or else it was a Viceroy (I couldn't see it well) I haven't found any cats on the MW.)

Did one of you lovelies need some swamp milkweed or asclepias tuberosa?

YES! I would love some!

Mrs_Ed, that's very nice of you to offer. I'm holding out for my butterfly to visit. (Not many has been sighted here, only one here and there). I'm so jeaulous of others that have them purdy in the garden (the butterflies -- I meant).

Seeds, that is, Tab. I've got it in my brain that I offered someone seeds… can't remember.

Hey Merideth, I see a picture in plantfiles from you for verbena bonariensis. Does that bloom the first year? I forgot to plant mine and now I'm wondering if I should just fall sow or get them in the ground now.

tx.

Well nix that. I just saw that it's not perennial hardy up here. HOW did I miss THAT!

This message was edited Jun 18, 2009 2:43 PM

Yes they grow quick I think they started blooming in July from winter sowing. So you should still get blooms before frost. Maybe save most of them for a longer season next year?

I had no idea that they were annuals. Do they self seed at all?

Wooohooo, I saw a BST and probably an American Lady today. Woooohoooo. I'm gonna make sure all my hostplants are in good shapes. :-)

I'm still looking for my Monarch though.

I found one self sown seedling. But I've been digging my beds up so I could have buried all the seed
before it had a chance.
Congratulations Lily!! I am so happy for you. : )

I finally had a butterfly that I could get a picture of.

I was excited to notice these Monarch caterpillars on my dill plants yesterday, but when I searched for them this morning, they were gone. :o( We had a serious downpour/thunderstorms this morning, perhaps they were swept away? I am also inclined to think that the birds may have eaten them, but I'm not sure. In any event, they were beautiful. Snug

Hey Snug, that's a black swallowtail, not a monarch.

Nice one, Merideth. I haven't had any Tiger Swallowtails yet this year.

Gorgeous photo!

Ooooh yes, Black swallowtail cat. snug. I take 'em too. lol. (I haven't had any of those yet this year), but I saw a butterfly today, so hopefully it was a female butterfly....I've bronz fennels, regular fennels, common rue, curled parsley, regular parsley so they can take their pick. lol.

Thanks : )

Thank you for your correction! It's not often that I see these caterpillars, and I jumped to a conclusion before verifying!! Oh my :> Snug, :o)

They are indeed similar in their coloring! the host plant is the key!

Mrs. Ed I was thinking about the verbena and I remembered another reason they probably did not seed is because I collected most of their seeds.

ah. I'm just wondering when i plant them if they will reseed for me like my nicotiana, calendula, etc.

I feel so stupid for thinking they were hardy here. ha. oh well.

They might be hardy there, some people report them coming back after mild winters in zones as cold as ours.

A bit about the verbena, Mrs. Ed: here I just take a seed head or two off the plant in September/October and crumble it up in my hands and let the seeds drop in a garden area where I want the plants to grow and they self seed nicely and come up the following summer just fine. I don't even bother with the wintersowing containers for this one.

Now, I admit I get a zillion little verbena seedlings coming up in the garden and then I just pull or pot up and trade away all the ones I don't want. If you are a neatnick in your garden, this method may drive you crazy. Many people complain about having so many and tear their hair out about them, but I love the verbena bonarienses because the swallowtails here go crazy for it. Monarchs too.

Also~~more about the v.b.~~when the verbena gets to be about 12-18 inches high I snip off the stick-like seedlings so that the plant becomes more bushy. I think this is what the nurseries do to make the plant look more significant (and thus they charge a higher price).

I topped off some of my milkweeds, too, this summer and I think it's reallly helped them look better in the garden, although the bloom comes a little later.

I suppose I shouldn't hijack this thread with v.b. talk (sorry!), but I really really like it for the butterflies (-:

Oh, thanks Tab for the info on that. I guess I'll go ahead and plant some now then. I'm not a neatnick at all and love when stuff reseeds. I just pull up the extras too! You should have seen the crop of Borage this year. I had no takers though!

LOL borage! I have a big patch of borage too!

I read you can use it in salads (but I went out and bit on a leaf and didn't think it tasted so great) and I recently went to a elegant beautiful Sunday brunch and the hostess put the borage flowers in the iced drinks and was it ever pretty!

I haven't used my borage for anything culinary-wise yet. I think I planted it for the butterflies, but I can't remember why!

Do your butterlies like it??

I plant it amongst the tomatoes as a deterrent to tomato worm. It really works. I don't see many butterflies on it, but lots of bees.

I think Verbena bonariensis talk is perfect for a thread about Monarchs - it is highly recommended by Monarch Watch as their preferred nectar source. If it would bother people with it's reseeding they could always go the root I did and collect the seed heads for trades and do some WS containers. I just planted a 72 cell tray out yesterday. I put 1/3 behind my pool with grasses and hibiscus. The rest went along my fence to fill in between all my tiny new roses I planted this year. I planted the whole WS container almost a month ago throughout my big butterfly garden. I knew I'd probably be changing the garden they were in all around this year, so I didn't want to chance getting any this year. I was worried about them taking over the butterfly garden, because I've heard they can be aggressive reseeders. I don't think that includes New England, I think it does better some years than other here. This fall I plan to do what you suggested. At least behind my pool because I want it to be wild with more tropical looking plants back there. I just need some more loam delivered so I can keep adding to it.

Well I'm going to try it too. Hope I'm not too late!

I hope not too! I have done lots of talking with dgers from IL and I am pretty sure you have at least a month longer than I before your first fall frost.

that's odd since you're a half zone warmer than I am!

I'll try and get those in today. It's going to be really hot. Maybe they'll germinate faster. LOL.

I know it is weird, but the usda zones isn't a good determination of length of growing days. Just the lowest winter temps a place is likely to experience. Not including duration or any other factors, when it gets in the - teens here, it stays that way for weeks at a time. Not sure if it's the same there but we get a lot of freeze thaw cycles. I am lucky to get 150 frost free days. That's why they should change plants hardiness ratings to the other system. I think it's called sunset zone? Here's a link to a chart of growing days by major cities. If you look IL is listed around 180 days while Concord NH is only about 120. It is a half a zone warmer here than Concord so I would add a couple weeks to that for me. So I just figured it out and 150 is probably average for me.

Forgot link! http://allaboutsquarefootgardening.com/?page_id=8

Wow, that's interesting!

PS. Thought of you today because the common milkweed is blooming in the area (not my yard) and my butterfly weed is in full bloom. So I'm waiting for those Monarchs!!

Hopefully they will show up any day now! That one I found was definitely a fluke of some kind. I still haven't seen an adult Monarch and I've scoped out other patches of milkweed around town and there aren't any cats any where. JUst that one and whom I sadly must say went MIA on me. Hopefully to make chrysalis! : )

It's so funny because I swear almost the same exact thing happened to someone else here on dg last year. I remember thinking 'what's the chances one butterfly thatw as released could make it to that oned person?' Now I think it happened to me! It could have something to do with all the flowers I had blooming compared to every where else around me. It may look a little guady to non gardening types but those butterflies and hummers have to disagree! :)

yah! My BF garden is still in it's infancy, but soon it will be overgrown I'm sure! I just had to chop down some of that borage in the tomato bed. It was crowding out the tomatoes! LOL

Lol!

The borage forest! I tasted it. It was like fuzzy cucumbers!