Butterfly Gardening

involves planting appropriate nectar-rich plants accessible to butterflies and host food plants for caterpillars. In addition to the Butterfly Garden at the UCSC Arboretum, I have also planted small plots in our Santa Cruz Westside garden to attract butterflies.

Gulf fritillary

Gulf fritillaries have expanded their range from the Southern states via gardens as a result of planting of passion flowers. In our garden, numbers vary from year to year, but they are to be seen most days. They usually have 4 life-cycles per year and have reached numbers exceeding 30 adults at their peak towards the end of October. Numbers are affected by weather, predators such as paper wasps and food supply. In 2018 the caterpillars practically stripped our passion flower hedge of every leaf.

Egg

Hatchling

Caterpillar

J-formation

Pupae

Emergence

Adults on passion flower

Next gen

Gulf fritillary : maximum number seen on any one day within a period of a week in 2013.

(x-axis = 1/4 month)

Close up of Gulf fritillary wing showing scales.

Underwing of gulf fritillary

Monarch

Monarch butterflies spend the winter in Santa Cruz in sheltered gulches along the coast, in communal gathering sometimes numbering in the thousands. A few spend summer here and undergo their life cycle. There is much debate about whether planting milkweed near the coast is disrupting their migration behavior and causing an increase in parasite load. A few milkweed plants self-seed each year in our garden and any monarch caterpillars that I find on them, I put in a terrarium when they are full grown and about to pupate. When the adult butterfly emerges I check for the Ophryocystis elektroscirrha parasite (OE) using the sticky tape test and only release those that are clear of the parasite. About 30% of western Monarchs are infected and this tallies with those I have checked.