Week of June 23

Gainesville, Florida touts itself as the “Butterfly Capital of the US.”  They might be right, and many of the plantings in the Florida Home’s garden have one of two purposes:  Provide pollen to the pollinators (butterflies, bees, hummingbirds) or serve as host plants for the eggs and caterpillars of the huge numbers of butterfly species.  I am thankful I have a local expert; Joyce volunteers weekly at the Florida Museum of Natural History as a docent, which gives her access to their butterfly aviary and world class butterfly collection.  Two beautiful and frequent visitors to our garden are the Zebra Longwing ( Florida’s State butterfly) with a white caterpillar and the Gulf Fritillary with an orange caterpillar, both of which eat the passionflower vines growing along the fence.  We have several swallowtail butterfly species, the most common is the black swallowtail, which has as a host plant, parsley.  On one occasion, we went to our herb garden for some herbs, only to find caterpillars!  Solution: buy more parsley plants.  Another huge family are the skippers, smaller but very active in the salvias next to the pool, where we can watch them while we swim.  The plumbago there also attracts other species like the common buckeye.  Butterflies certainly make the Florida garden special.