In the Gardens of Etsy

How to care butterfly cycle

I have been working on making a Butterfly Garden in my yard since 2009. I have seen 28 kinds of butterfly in the garden this year!!! The most important part of my butterfly garden is making a good environment for a butterfly's life cycle. Two kinds of butterflies, Black Swallowtail and Wild Indigo Dusckywing, laid eggs and spent their cycle in my garden this year! When I found butterfly larvae, I put them into an insect cage or surrounded the plants where I found the larvae with chicken wire and covered the wire with mesh fabric like this picture.

This is an Indigo blue plant. I couldn't bring Wild Indigo Dusckywing larvae into insect cage, because I had only one plant. I didn't have enough to feed them in the cage constantly. That's why I decided to leave them outside and use the wire and fabric.
Ten or more Wild Indigo pupae turned into butterflies!

I need to protect the butterfly larvae because I'm feeding birds in my yard. Butterfly larvae can't survive without protections in my yard.


Black Swallowtail laid eggs on my husband Fennel and Parsley. Fortunately, we had enough plants to feed the larvae in a insect cage. I put the larvae into the cage, and took care of them until they tuned into butterflies. :)
I'm going to share what I learned from taking care of Black Swallowtail.

This Black Swallowtail is laying eggs on a parsley plant.

The egg is the tiny white spot on the leaf in the middle of the picture.











I learned that Black Swallowtail larva has five instars. An instar is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each molt, until sexual maturity is reached.

 

  This is not good picture, but you can see how small first instar stage of the larva is.

Look at the small black larva. This is the second instar stage. A white line appeared on the center of the body.

Third instar stage. A lot of horns appeared on it's back.

Fourth instar stage. Body color turned green. You still see the horns on it's back

Fifty instar stage. The horns disappeared. It's almost ready to turn into a pupa.

It's about to turn into a pupa.  There is a fine silk line surrounding the body and the branch.

These are two differently colored Black Swallowtail pupae.

 Brown

Green

The Black Swallowtail pupae may be green or brown, but not depending on surroundings or what they have pupated on. The color of the chrysalis is determined by a local genetic balance that ensures the majority of pupae will blend in.

The Black Swallowtail caterpillar has an orange "forked gland", called the osmeterium. When in danger the osmeterium, which looks like a snake's tongue, and releases a foul smell to repel predators. I saw the osmeterium on even first instar stage of larva.

I had six Black Swallowtail pupae, and only one pupa turned into a butterfly. 

 This is a female. Her right tail is not open completely yet. 

She took a rest a while on my hand until her wings completely open.

If you take care of butterfly cycle, you can have them climb on your hand!!! I did same thing with Wild Indigo Dusckywing. That was awesome!

Kentucky, where I live, got cold weather in September, so most pupae couldn't turn into butterflies. However, a Garden Club member (I belong to Glasgow Garden Club in KY) told me that Black Swallowtail pupa can over winter, and they can turn into a butterfly. I'll keep my pupae in the garage until next spring. I look forward to seeing that my pupae turn into butterflies next spring. :)

I'm sharing my butterfly pictures, which I took in my garden, on my Facebook page. If you are interested in which butterflies you can see in my garden, search "hummingbird_kj2010@yahoo.com" on Facebook, and please send a friend request. :) My Facebook page is not published to all people.

Thanks!

Kazumi

NeIro

The Season of "The Gathering"

~ Welcome Autumn ~

Here in the Gardens of Etsy, Artisans Gather Together to Celebrate Autumn
The work featured in this treasury is just a glimpse of the Beautiful work created by the talented members of our team.




Here you can see more of their Beautiful creations:
http://www.etsy.com/people/GardensOfEtsyTeam/favorites?ref=pr_faves

The Season of the Gathering ~ by Julie DeGroot
Autumn to me is the earth preparing for it's long winter slumber. Getting ready to start the circle of life yet again. I am so inspired by the beauty and vibrate explosion of color that surround me.

I smell the cool crisp sweet scented air and that distinct aroma of rotting leaves, ever falling from the trees, creating a blanket onto the earth for cover & mulch for Spring's new growth.

Natures carpet becomes alive with dancing whirling leaves as the winds begin to blow more intense, scattering the seeds of life about. I meander through my gardens planting and gathering.

Time to collect my wind chimes and garden art and bring them to safety.

I anticipate the glorious arrival of the Harvest and Hunters' Moons, as they greet me and envelop the night sky.

Autumn to me is the Season of The Gathering.
In the skies, birds flock to begin their journeys together.
In the forests, wildlife herd up once again.
In the water, my Koi group at the deepest depths of my pond to start their hibernation.
On the land, we gather together to harvest our crops, game and seeds. Gathering in kitchens and pantries canning, baking and freezing.

Autumn to me, it is a Season of Celebration, as we gather together at tables with family and friends. Grateful and Thankful for them and for natures bounty, The Harvest.

"Winter is an etching, Spring a watercolor, Summer an oil painting and Autumn a mosaic of them all."......Stanley Horowitz

A Woodsy Treat

Sharing "Teddy Bear Sunflower seeds" from my garden

Hi Gardens of Etsy Team members and the blog followers,

As I posted my tread at the team forum, somehow I had a few Teddy Bear Sunflowers in my garden this year, and succeeded in saving the seeds.

I'm belong to Glasgow Garden Club in KY as a volunteer, so I asked members what kind of sunflower it is. However no one knew the answer. My mother-in-law finally gave me the answer. She knows very well about flowers, trees and birds. She and I are garden friends. :)

I'm going to give the seeds to you. :)

Mine is not a dwarf variety. It reached my height (5 feet). The largest flower was about 7” in diameter. One plant can have five or more flowers.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get many seeds, because where I live had more rain than usual this summer. Most of the seeds got moldy. I'll send only five seeds per applicant. I think I can share the seeds with 20 garden friends :) I hope you can grow a new face in your garden!

If you are interested in the seeds, please send a message to my shop. :)

Thanks,

Kazumi

My bog garden wrap up

Bog garden continued before and after

I thought I would do a before and after shot of the bog garden.  I've been waiting patiently for the ironweed to bloom because it's so pretty. It blooms down at the river in it's native form which gets 6-7 feet tall.  My variety is a cultivar dwarf size.

It's been hot and dry this summer and I've lost a lot of plants but the bog was a huge success.  Except for not having the pickeral weed which was the original plan.  I gave up on it after the deer ate it down every time it would get over 2" tall.  I have native passion flower twining around the ground and up the hook that holds the wind chime.  My varigated yucca made an appearance after I had forgotten that I put it there.  The blue tinged panic grasses are doing well.  The pitcher plants are great.  I'm so glad I tried them.  The whole thing was almost maintenence except for adding water when it was dry (which was most of the summer).

So that is the bog blog wrapping up for the season.  I'll be posting about other garden stuff till frost but I'm so glad you joined me on this adventure.  Next time you have an area of the yard that won't drain or where the gutters always make a wet spot, try a bog.

Remember this?  

Now look at this!

That's passion flower growing around the ground and some varigated yucca spikes

Ironweed with feathery clumps of lavender flowers complete with butterfly

Joy of Autumn from the Gardens of Etsy Team