The Metamorphosis of a green-fingered Birder

When I first planned to refresh the front garden of our house in north-eastern USA, I knew I wanted to plant indigenous plants. I must say that I am not a gardener. I loved my garden back in Johannesburg as I planted indigenous and water-wise plants when I first moved in and left them to run wild and grow crazily over the 12 years I lived there. I loved the low maintenance of that kind of garden. Here in the USA, I always seem to see people working in their gardens – not what I wanted to do.

As I’m an avid birder, I knew I needed a few shrubs with berries to carry the birds through the beginning of winter and then anything that attracted insects that their offspring could eat in the summer, would be a bonus. I knew that the Milkweed family of plants would be not only a rather fetching addition to the garden but read that they would also attract Monarch butterflies, which was a bonus. Growing up, I used to watch nature programmes and they would show millions of Monarchs gathering in Mexico to overwinter, before heading north to fly back to Canada in the spring. The idea of having a few plants in my yard that could help these amazing butterflies along their incredible journey appealed to me, so I added Milkweed (Asclepiadaceae family) to my shopping list.

I ended up with only three Milkweed plants by the time the planting came around. A Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), a Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incamata) and a Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa). The garden was initially sparse with the idea that I could add more plants over the years.  

The one bush I did leave in the front garden during the great cleanup, is called a Butterfly Bush here. When this started growing last year, I fondly remembered my various Buddlejas from home and was thrilled when it started flowering with fragrant heads of hundreds of light

purple flowers. That was as much as I was going to do about butterfly-friendly plants. I had the stress of watering every day until the plants were established as we had a two-week heatwave right after everything was planted.

Six weeks later I was looking around the garden when I noticed a caterpillar on the Butterfly Weed. Lo and behold, it was a Monarch caterpillar! I was so thrilled and couldn’t wait to get a photo or two up to show everyone. I called myself a proud mamma at the time. Little did I know…

Within a week I had 17 Monarch Caterpillars between my three Milkweed species. That same day I counted all those caterpillars, I found my first green chrysalis hanging under the roof overhang. I immediately needed to know what to do, when to do it and how I could help them. My days of raising silkworms were about 45 years ago and as I can sometimes barely remember what I had for breakfast, I had to use my good friend Google for help. I started reading and found a huge community of Monarch and other butterfly crazies out there with more information than I could ever hope to absorb.

I was relieved to read that I had done the right thing. I had food for the caterpillars and an immediate source of nectar, thanks to my Butterfly Bush. I read up more about chrysalises and learnt that they are initially green, and that it takes 2-3 weeks for what I call butterfly juice to work its magic before the colour turns dark. The chrysalis becomes almost see-through and the dark you see is the butterfly inside, just waiting to emerge. This process of them emerging is called enclosion. Such a magnificent word. I couldn’t wait!

Once the caterpillar has eaten and grown enough, it finds a safe spot (as it turns out, not a safe spot, mostly just a spot), where it weaves a small web base from which to hang and hangs itself upside down in the shape of a “J” with its head lightly curved upwards. In butterfly crazy circles, this is called a “J”. This happens late afternoon (well in my garden anyway) and by morning, the chrysalis is formed. I was never lucky enough to see this process, no matter how many times I went out before bedtime with a torch, searching under leaves. Maybe some of the magic needed to stay magic!

Each morning I would go outside and search under the leaves of the Butterfly Bush, the eaves, the roof overhang, under the windowsill and then surprisingly in-between the sword-like leaves of my Red Hot Poker (yes I found a couple of them at the nursery, so have two in my garden making lovely orange spears to remind me of home). My caterpillar count was also climbing and was 27 at one stage. My Milkweeds were being decimated but magically, the more I watered, the more new leaves kept sprouting and the cycle continued.

My first child enclosed almost 10 days after I found the chrysalis. I didn’t see it emerge but was lucky with future children. Once they emerge, the butterfly wings are small and folded like curtains hanging in your dining room. The butterflies need to safely hang upside down to let the blood pump into their wings before it hardens. Once hard, the wings can sustain flight. Within half an hour my child was flying around and drinking some much-needed nectar before heading off over the house to places unknown.

Soon my free time became dominated with frequent visits to the front garden, checking, counting, watering, recounting, and rechecking. Early one evening I was out watering when I realized that about six chrysalises hanging from the roof overhang were missing. I ran inside for my torch and couldn’t see anything. No creature could have reached them so I assume a very hungry bird came around and grabbed the perfectly hanging tasty treats for dinner. Such is the circle of life but some days it really sucks.

Less than a month after finding my first chrysalis, I have just two left. They are in a safe place so feel confident that they will soon be gracing the skies and heading south to Mexico. At least 10 butterflies successfully emerged, and the success rate of 1:3 isn’t too bad. I don’t think I will get to the point of bringing them indoors like many people do as nature needs to take its course. What I do know is that next Spring I will be planting a LOT more Milkweed to keep the Monarch butterfly factory going.