Happy Spring!!!

Well hello everyone! Happy Spring! I am beginning to start my summer butterfly flower plans. I thought I would share those plans with you and inspire you to do the same. First I got my paperwork today and my yard sign from Monarch Watch. My garden at home now officially a Monarch Waystation. This means that I have full filled the requirements of Monarchwatch.org to have a monarch friendly and sustainable garden. I am really excited about this. If you are interested got to monarchwatch.org. So what am I doing for the summer? Well late in the season last year I learned that not only does milkweed have sap in it that has a chemical makeup that makes them taste bad to birds, but there is some evidence that some milkweed plants have more of this chemical than others. Not only that, the chemical is a protectant from diseases that monarch caterpillars are sussespable to. So those two species are swamp milkweed and tropical (or red) milkweed. Right now I am starting seeds for both milkweed. I will be filling my big ceramic pots around the house with tropical milkweed (*sniff* I will miss my geraniums) and petunias for hummingbirds. I am really excited about doing this. I have a really large blue ceramic pot that I moved to a more prominat position in the garden and that will the new focal point of the garden. The swamp milkweed I am growing will go in various open spots in the garden. The point of all of this milkweed is that I want to collect monarch eggs more close to home. I will also be growing a few pots of dill and parsley (which is a biennuial). I want to attract swallowtail butterflies too. So I really hope this works. Last summer I had about six secret spots that I visited every couple of days for eggs. I exhausted myself running around collecting eggs. So I have a different plan this summer. More soon!