In the Butterfy Garden: Caterpillar Predators

Customers often tell me that caterpillars they've been watching have suddenly disappeared and they wonder what could have happened to them. Sometimes they've just grown up and have gone off to pupate. But often they have become a victim of predators. Birds, of course, love a nice tasty caterpillar, but many smaller critters are predators as well. I recently captured two such predators with my camera.

This is a paper wasp devouring a monarch caterpillar. . . .


And this is what's left of a monarch caterpillar after a wasp is through with it:


Lizards (or anoles as most of our lizards are appropriately called) eat butterfly eggs and caterpillars. Here is a lizard with an adult butterfly. It was at the end of it's life and was struggling on the sidewalk. I could see the lizard eyeing it and then grab it. It was a pretty heavy load for the lizard so I had time to run get my camera and snap this picture just before the poor butterfly was carried into the brush:

In the Butterfly Garden: Another Milkweed

Several years ago I started seeing growers selling giant milkweed (Calotropis gigantea) at butterfly gardening festivals. These were large plants in 3 gallon pots that sold in the neighborhood of $25. Though I had not seen any with monarch caterpillars, I was assured the giant milkweek was a good host plant. After seeing them several times, I finally broke down, purchased one and started taking cuttings. My hope was to be able to offer smaller plants at a lower price. They are not the easiest thing to propagate, but I have several going and sell them in a 1 gallon pot for $9.99.

Giant milkweed gets to be a large plant several feet high and would be great in ground here in central Florida except that our winter weather is a bit too cold. Calotropis is recommended for US zones 10B-11. We are 9B. My recommendation is to grow it in a large container and bring indoors when the temperature dips into the 30s.

The leaves of giant milkweed are large and a silvery green. The flowers come in lavender or white, though I only have the lavender. I've had plenty of flowers, but have yet to get any seed pods.

So the big question for butterfly gardeners is are they good host plants? Answer:

I've had lots of healthy monarch caterpillars on my giant milkweeds. And, as you can see, the large leaves give them more to eat than regular milkweed and also make a nice platform for collecting caterpillar poop.

In the Butterfly Garden: Two Plants with Fall Color

Among the best plants for fall color are two that are also great plants for the butterfly garden.

The first is Senna bicapsularis (syn. Cassia bicapsularis) with the common names of Christmas senna, winter cassia and fall cassia, all indicating that this is the time of year when they are at their peak of blooming. Fall cassia can be kept pruned into a tall shrub or can be let loose to form a small tree (10-12 feet). Right down the street from me on 11th Avenue in Mount Dora are a couple of fall cassias that have been planted to beautiful effect behind a white fence:

Fall cassia is a host plant for a number of sulphur butterfly caterpillars. These butterflies usually zoom through the yard without stopping, but will stop to lay eggs and perhaps stick around for a bit of nectar from one of your nectar plants. Pictured is a female sulphur laying an egg:

The second plant with great fall color is our native firebush (Hamelia patens) with its orange flowers and black berries. Firebush gets to be a tall shrub and can be grown in either full sun or partial shade. It is a favorite nectar plant of the two passionvine butterflies in our area: the gulf fritillary and the zebra longwing.

In the Butterfly Garden: Everyone Loves Milkweed!

The one plant that is the first to be planted in just about every butterfly garden is milkweed (Asclepias spp.). A host plant for the monarch and queen, it's also a decent nectar plant for a wide variety of butterflies. But move over, monarch caterpillar (below), there are other insects taking up residence in the milkweeds.


Aphids are a nearly constant presence on the tender ends. Normally the best control for aphids would be a spray like insecticidal soap, but in the butterfly garden I advise removing them with the garden hose. Luckily the aphids come off easily while the monarch eggs are sticky and not so easily dislodged. Unfortunately the aphids usually come back, so this can wind up being a daily process. Ladybugs will eat aphids so if you can attract them and keep them around, this can help too.


The other insects that enjoy milkweed are milkweed seed bugs. These orange and black bugs feed on the milkweed seeds. In the picture below, there is an adult in the upper right corner and lots of young nymphs on the milkweed seed pod. Usually there are only a few to be found and they can be picked off by hand. Occasionally, however, the population gets out of hand. You can try keeping the seed pods removed; otherwise spraying with insecticidal soap may be your only recourse.

In the Butterfly Garden: Lantanas and Tiger Swallowtails

I love finding Tiger Swallowtails on the lantana. What spectacularly large and beautiful butterflies. I first got interested in butterfly gardening after seeing these swallowtails making frequent trips to a roadside lantana that had popped up in the corner of my property long ago. A lot of gardeners don’t like planting lantana in their yards because it reminds them of those roadside lantanas that grow like weeds by, well, by the roadside. But they’re missing out on what is probably the best butterfly nectar plant in Florida and many named cultivars are now available in colors other than the deep orange and school-bus-yellow common lantana. Several sizes are available, too, from low growing trailing lantana to ones that grow 5 feet. Frequently we carry lantanas grown into lollipop topiaries and have one planted in our own butterfly garden (replacing the one we lost last year to hurricane Jeanne). Lantanas are reported to be somewhat toxic, especially the berries, but my border collie, Maggie, finds the slightly funky smell of lantana to be irresistable and has eaten many leaves with seemingly no ill effect.

In the Butterfly Garden: Blue Plumbago

I have lots of Blue Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata) in my butterfly garden. It's one of the best flowering landscape plants in Florida: cold hardy and blooming all year round with beautiful periwinkle blue flowers. It's considered a major butterfly plant because it's a host plant for the tiny blue cassius butterfly. But lately I've been seeing many species of butterflies using it as a nectar plant as well in spite of the fact that there are many of the best nectar plants for butterflies to choose from in the garden.