If you want to be a monarch butterfly waystation, you must plant butterfly weed. This statuesque architectural statement in your yard is a miracle plant!
Watch for the appearance of monarchs in your yard this month. They migrate through Texas on their way back to Mexico each fall and will stop to feed on nectar and lay eggs on your butterfly weed. They remember each year to pass on the word to their friends that your yard is an “it” yard with the plant they need to keep going.
The monarch caterpillars are large and striped black, white, and yellow. Do not spray with any type of insecticide whether organic or not! Allow these lovely caterpillars to feed on your butterfly weed as if they’re at a Thanksgiving Buffet! Don’t worry, the plants will recover.
After the first freeze of the year, cut them back and they’ll return even more robustly the following spring. Enjoy the monarch cycle all over again and be the monarch waystation about which you’ve always dreamed!
Are you having a monarch watch party at your place?
Brown furry
Caterpillar in a hurry
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what bot,
Which may be the chosen spot.
No toad spy you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again, a butterfly.