Is your garden caterpillar friendly?

Today there was an excellent article in the Miami Herald’s garden section, written by Norman Winter. He asked the question, is your garden caterpillar friendly? This question got me thinking, I consider my garden butterfly friendly, but am I doing enough to help caterpillar thrive. 

(This picture is from my vegetable garden a couple of years ago) 

 Butterflies lay their eggs in certain plants where the caterpillars will feed and grow.  I have many milkweed plants all over my garden; they are the Monarch’s favorite plant, (It is fascinating to see these little guys devour a milkweed plant in a day) but I also have other butterflies visiting the garden, like Zebras, yellow Sulphurs, Gulf Fritillaris, Julia and many others.  It is important to have host plants for each of these butterflies.  For example the Julias and Zebras (the most common butterflies in my garden) like the passion flower vines. I currently don’t have one in the garden, but you can be sure that it is my list of future plants. The bottom line is if you are caterpillar friendly, you will have many more butterflies in your garden.

This will be my next project; I will be expanding this bed and plant more??? Yes, butterfly and caterpillar friendly plants.

This week at the DragonFly Garden

Another weekend ruined by rain.  I was able to put in a couple of hours on Saturday morning and get the garden in the front of the house ready for Christmas decorations next week.

I have a few giant white birds of paradise blooming this week.  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING