Queen of the Butterflies
One of the things I love about my job is being able to bring some of mine and others crazy ideas to life. A couple of years ago the greenhouse on campus was transferred back to the care of the Science Department. After being used as a sustainable garden for the Culinary Department, it became overgrown and out of control. As we don’t currently offer any botany courses we needed to find a new use for the space. A couple of failed attempts led to one of my faculty suggesting a butterfly habitat. Of course I loved the idea and rallied my staff to get working. My staff put in many hours transforming the planted boxes into planted beds and after about 18 months it was looking good but there was still a long way to go to make my vision a reality. At the suggestion of my VP, I reached out to a beautification foundation on campus and sure enough they funded many of my remaining projects. They added seating inside the greenhouse, new potting benches and a mural and signage outside of the greenhouse. This spring I planted milkweed seeds and grew over 300 plants with my staff. Then the fun began. We ordered our first batch of painted lady butterflies. They arrived as larvae. When you order living specimens many times it is a set number, in this case 30 but they send extra to make sure you will have the specified number.
After the first week we had 54 caterpillars, I ran out of food and let 11 of them go on the plants in the greenhouse. A week later there were 45 chrysalis!
I think all of them emerged. The next thing I needed to do was get a permit from the state to be able to collect wild butterflies to add to the greenhouse. We planted milkweed outside of the greenhouse and the next thing you know there were monarch butterflies and soon after, caterpillars. I was able to collect some cabbage white and monarch butterflies and move some monarch caterpillars into the greenhouse. We must be doing something right as the monarchs and cabbage white butterflies mated and we now have caterpillars inside of the greenhouse. I have always liked seeing butterflies but now I look at them differently, it is amazing how fast they grow and transform. I am learning so much about butterflies and which host plants they need. On my list is getting some swallowtails for our collection and switching over my gardens at home to have more milkweed. Monarchs need our help and just planting 21 plants outside of the greenhouse we have seen at least 4 batches of caterpillars. What is your favorite butterfly? I would love to hear about it in the comments.
