Life on the Milkweed

Looking close onto our milkweed we observe life happening. A young caterpillar eats and eats and eats. This particular milkweed is the host plant for Monarch caterpillars. We didn't place milkweed seeds into the soil this season, but we did last year and it has grown back big and strong. We noticed the tiniest of caterpillars a couple days after returning home from our road trip.

Narrow-leaf Milkweed

Asclepias fascicularis

The milkweed stems and leaf bases are covered with yellow aphids. We purchased a container of 1500+ ladybugs to take care of them.

The caterpillars are at different stages in their growth.

A LITTLE EGG LAY ON A LEAF

Julia and James explained to me how the day before, when with their daddy, they saw the mommy butterfly land on the leaf, curl her bottom under and lay an egg. I found this one and asked if this was one of the eggs and they told me it was.

We have a live butterfly garden house as does our friend Katie and her girls; we thought it would be fun to watch the life cycle of the monarch closely inside our homes, so we filled them with five caterpillars each along with the milkweed they were so happily attached to. We also filled them with ladybugs as the aphids were attached to the milkweed too.

The whole thing was a disaster. The aphids looked too big to get through the holes...
Well you can imagine what happened. The live butterfly garden house was then hung outside. The ladybugs bothered the caterpillars. A couple days later the caterpillars were dead and the whole thing was covered with ants. I rinsed out most of the mess about 4 hours ago and just as I was making this post, my arm tickled; I looked up my sweater sleeve and out came a ladybug!

LADYBUG FEAST in the garden

Milkweed flowers


MONARCH CATERPILLAR

MOTHER AND CHILD

This afternoon mommy butterfly returned and I too witnessed the laying of many eggs, one at a time.



LOOK CLOSE,

you can see the egg coming out of the tail end!

A FRESHLY LAID BUTTERFLY EGG