M&Ms – Monarchs and Milkweed
For some reason I always thought milkweed was like a weed and that you couldn’t kill it if you tried. Well, apparently I’m quite able to kill it in my butterfly garden. But not before I had a lot of monarch butterflies come visit and lay eggs.
I think I have too many birds in my backyard though. The monarch caterpillars got a good start but none of them ever made a cocoon – at least that I could find. But they were still fun to watch.
Isn’t it cute how they start out as stripes and turn into to polka-dots?
For now, the dune sunflower I planted in my butterfly garden has taken over. It’s pretty but doesn’t seem to attract a lot of butterflies. Everything else was pretty much knocked out by the freeze this past winter. Looking at these pictures reminds me that I need to go get some more milkweed and get a repeat of last summer!