I had FOUR Monarchs today

[chico2]

I am weird,cause I was as excited as a kid in a candy-store when I saw 4 Monarchs in my butterfly-bush maybe they are just late arriving.
The one in the last pic had damaged wings,but seemed ok,

[chico2]

Vinnie hunting butterflies,but I won't let him,there is nothing sadder than a beautiful butterfly with shredded wings,unable to fly:sad:

[hazelrunpack]

Beautiful! We haven't seen many monarchs here, yet--maybe later. The swallowtails are a bit scarce, too. I'm thinking our cool spring and summer might have been as hard on the monarchs as it was on the first nesting attempts of the birds. :sad:

[Bina]

No monarchs here either..... Great pics.

[Gail P]

I've heard they are later this year because the milkweeds were slower to grow. Some years I have tons of milkweeds and monarchs around my place but I haven't noticed as many this year. I released a monarch butterfly this morning that just hatched. My daughter likes to get the caterpillars and keep them until they turn into butterflies.

[chico2]

Gail.I would love that experience too,but I cannot find any Milk-Weed:sad:

[Love4himies]

I have only seen 1 Monarch and 2 Swallowtails so far this year :sad:. It seems every year there are less and less beautiful butterflies.

[Gail P]

I would imagine that in the cities there would be less milkweeds for the monarchs and also less food sources for the swallowtails so you'd probably see less of them any given year than I might up here Up around here there is milkweed growing everywhere (love the smell when it flowers), just less of it this year than some others. Like everything else, I'm sure it cycles and has some good years and some bad, which will affect the population of the animals that depend on it for food. My apple trees and grape vines are like that, some years they fruit really well and other years they have hardly any fruit on them. I think so far this year I've only seen one swallowtail. Sometimes I find the swallowtail caterpillars in my garden eating the tops of the carrots or the dill. They don't seem to do much damage though so I just leave them alone. The dill grows kind of wild now anyhow, it sprouts up in all kinds of unexpected places between the rows of other vegetables I've planted.

[14+kitties]

I love Monarchs.

[chico2]

We had some ore today,maybe summer has finally arrived

Gail,I am not really in the city per say,Oakville is not a huge town,I was told once I could get Milk-weed from ditches,but I am not even sure what it looks like,got to Google it.

[Gail P]

Originally Posted by chico2

We had some ore today,maybe summer has finally arrived

Gail,I am not really in the city per say,Oakville is not a huge town,I was told once I could get Milk-weed from ditches,but I am not even sure what it looks like,got to Google it.

Yes, you probably could find some in ditches or ravines. When I was a kid I lived in Scarborough and just cottaged up in this area and I can remember taking home caterpillars and finding them some milkweeds in places like that. Although, sometimes they didn't seem to do so well on the milkweed I found there. Maybe they'd been sprayed with pesticide. I did discover that I could pick milkweed at the cottage, tie it in a plastic bag and keep it refrigerated and it stayed nice and fresh. I started doing that instead of trying to find it in the city. Milkweed has a single center stalk which on the bigger plants may be about as thick around as your thumb. The leaves are quite large, roughly oval shaped but more pointy toward the tip and they're kind of fuzzy on the underside. When they are broken off the plant they will "bleed" a milky white substance that is sticky if you get it on you. The flowers look like a ball of little deep pink balls on stalks until they open up and then each little bit is more of a star shape and lighter pink. They will also grow green seed pods that will later open up so the "fuzzies" can blow away with the seeds.

Here are a couple of pictures I just went and looked up:

[chico2]

Gail,thank's!

The flowers look like the ones from my in-door Hoya(sp?)plant,I've seen those big leaves around,got to check some more and maybe dig a plant up.
I've heard they are spreaders though,so I would have to keep them in check

[Tundra_Queen]

I love monarchs. We don't get them up here though.

Some places don't allow u to grow milkweed, they classify it as a toxic weed. That is probably another reason there aren't as many monarchs around.

Debbie