Butter flies
What do they want with my garden!!
There are many types of insects that come to your garden. Some good, some not so good. But, butterflies are among the best of the good ones. In case you didn’t know, they eat nectar from plants, fruit juice or even sugar water. Essentially, they want sugar.
Caterpillars
Now, as beneficial as butterflies are for your garden. The caterpillar usually has a negative impact on your garden. But, the butterfly is your ally. So, what do we do? This is a delicate balance we have to strike between killing the caterpillars and leaving them to grow into butterflies. There is usually not an issue killing the caterpillars they will eat your plants. But, understand that it will help them feed and turn into butterflies. And, just like picking 1 leaf promotes plant growth the caterpillars feeding also promotes plant growth. In the early spring, like now, the caterpillars are in full force. You can eliminate some of them but do not remove all of them.
The eggs
The butterfly are similar to these above but are found on the underside of leaves. So, if you're looking for them that is where you will find them. The eggs will hatch as caterpillars and those babies will be hungry. Whatever plant they hatch on will be the first they will go after.
The leaves will resemble the photo above. They could devastate a plant temporarily.
They usually won’t kill it. But it will look pretty bad. If it survives it will try to compensate for the missing leaves by taking off. The average time it takes for a caterpillar to go into a cocoon is about 4 to 8 weeks. If the plant survives that it will thrive. Again, the damage will look bad.
Butterflies vs Moths
There is a distinct difference between butterflies and moths.
This little guy was on my door. I'm not sure of the species.
The moth had a plain color while the butterfly had vibrant colors. the moth is nocturnal while the butterfly is active int he daytime. The butterfly likes nectar sugar water and drinks from garden puddles. while the moth like dark places and dung. The butterfly like dung as well but is more attracted to the fruit and sweet liquids. Both use astronomical navigation. The butterfly uses the sun, and the moth used the moon.
Both help to pollinate your flowering plants at different times, day and night. This is why it is so hard to manually pollinate because these guys do a way better job that we could ever do.
If you’ve seen either of these guys in your garden post a pic. All of us would like to see it. Show your success or failures. We can all learn from it.
Remember folks tell a friend share a post and let’s grow together!!