Red admiral on bright pink pentas
Throughout the winter I have been seeing lots of monarchs and zebra longwings, the occasional sulphur and not much else. But suddenly yesterday I saw so many butterflies appearing for the first time this year. A quick species count from the past 3 days:
blue cassius
red admiral
yellow sulphur
monarch
zebra longwing
gulf fritillary
gold rim swallowtail
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.
