I picked up this great booklet, Monarch Butterflies, at our recent trip to the Butterfly Rainforest. It is very informative and so pretty to look at! One side provides lots of information about Monarchs and the importance of milkweeds. I especially like how they highlight Florida's native milkweeds. The other side has many photos of caterpillars and their respective host plants.

Happy Halloween! I know I'm a day early but I wanted to share these Butterfly Pumpkins from our friends at Birds and Blooms magazine with you - just in case you haven't carved your pumpkin yet!

Photo by Birds & Blooms magazine

Hello butterfly gardening friends... I'm just back from vacation with my family. We were visiting the Pacific Northwest  - stay tuned for some butterfly photos from our trip!

Our friends at Birds & Blooms magazine sent me their wonderful butterfly gardening article in their current issue (August/September 2012)...



Well, you can read the article right here. They were so nice to allow me to share the article with you on Milkweed Gardens! Enjoy!


 



 

I recently found a wonderful posting about Florida's native milkweed on Tales from the Butterfly Garden: Lepidoptera Curious. Here it is: Preparing for the Caterpillar Season: Milkweed. Check it out!

Purple Milkweed (N), Photo by Ggallice on Flickr

I read this charming book with my daughter last night, the Butterfly Alphabet Book. We learned several new facts about butterflies as we went letter by letter through the alphabet. Did you know the Kamehameha is only found in Hawaii and is named after a Hawaiian king?

The Florida Wildflower Foundation's 2010 Symposium was great! I really enjoyed learning about the many native wildflowers that entice butterflies in our area. During his lecture, Dr. Daniels shared some of his favorites like the Sparkleberry, Snow Squarestem, Scorpion-tail, and Narrowleaf Sunflower. He also gave me a large quantity of one of my favorite butterfly brochures, Florida Wildflowers and Butterflies. It describes the butterfly's life cycle, has many pictures of Florida's butterflies and wildflowers, and offers butterfly gardening tips. If you would like one, drop me a line and I'll send one your way!

A new favorite book

The Florida Wildflowers Growers Cooperative was on hand to share advice about growing wildflowers and had a wonderful selection of seeds for sale. I can't wait to grow this Butterfly mix that I purchased!

Not sure if I mentioned this before but I have two Westies!

I've been doing some research for an upcoming Butterfly Gardening presentation and I thought I'd share two of my favorite butterfly articles with you. These are two readings that I often find myself turning to first when doing research. They are Getting Started in Butterfly Gardening and Butterfly Gardening in Florida. Both of these are articles can be found on EDIS, the Electronic Data Information Source of the University of Florida IFAS Extension. Here you will find many helpful articles  by University of Florida affiliates related to horticulture.