Thursday, November 17, 2011

All the Butterflies are Gone Now

 

With cold weather settling in and the lack of flowers around whether native or in my garden the butterflies have gone for another year.

FPC_Buddleia_Monarch
The only thing winging around here now besides the birds are those invasive Asian Ladybugs which I complain about every Fall.
When the farmers get the corn and soybeans picked and the  cold weather strikes they start coming into the homes to spend the winter. Ugh! Nasty stinking things not like the true Ladybugs. If they have not arrived at your state yet thank your lucky stars but they will be there soon because they are migrating on.

Asian_Ladybug

When I complain about them in the Fall there are those who say they would love to have them. If only they really knew what they were asking for. I repeat they are not your dark shelled little Ladybugs. In fact they are overtaking and destroying our natural Ladybugs. I will not bore those who already have them or those of you who have heard me rant every year so you can read about them in my older posting here.
When they finally arrive at your home then let me know how much you love them. Alright-y then, rant over with and back to the butterflies.

FPC_Buddleia_BB_WhiteonWhite3 On a visit to Franklin Park in October the butterflies were enjoying the Buddleia bushes that they have growing on the grounds.

FPC_Buddleia_Monarch_Bee2 
The Monarchs  were sharing them with the bees on that bright sunny day.I forgot about taking pictures of the flowers growing and started chasing butterflies trying to find one that would set still for me long enough for a shot.

FPC_Butterfly_CloudedSulphur

There were so many Monarch butterflies at Franklin Park. Even with planting Butterfly weed and other pollinator friendly flowers I very seldom have Monarchs at my garden.FPC_Valerian_Monrachs

   FPC_Butterfly_CommonBuckeye2
Common Buckeye were loving this scented Goldenrod.

FPC_Butterfly_CommonBuckeye3

I find myself planting more flowers in the garden and native plants in the Woodland bed just for the pollinators.

FPC_Butterfly

With our Honeybees disappearing every year I want to make sure there are many plants around that they like.

CF_Butterfly

Do you plant for the Butterflies and other pollinators in your garden?

Happy Gardening,
Lona

15 comments:

Giga said...

Teraz zobaczyć, że jeszcze gdzieś fruwają motyle, to radość. Do tego jeszcze takie piękne zdjęcia. Pozdrawiam

Patsy said...

I know I will miss the beautiful Butterfly. We still have some bumble bees on the fast drying Hyssop, it smells just like licorice.
I don't think we have the old bad Asian bug yet.

Barbee' said...

Beautiful photos! Yes, I do. We planted 5 spice bushes this year because I admire the spice bush butterflies. I hope they find us.

Gardening in a Sandbox said...

We had some snow flakes this morning. I hope that all your butterflies have flown off to somewhere where it is warm. See them next year. Valerie

Diana LaMarre said...

Ah, I know about those Asian ladybugs. Awful little creatures climbing all over the walls! We have had them for the past few years in Northern lower Michigan. BUT I have only seen one so far this year and that was yesterday. I am hoping they are going away.

I do miss the butterflies and flowers. They have all been gone for about a month now.

Indie said...

Some beautiful butterfly pics! I plant a lot of butterfly friendly plants in the backyard and love to see them visit! They are so pretty.

I've actually not heard about the Asian ladybugs, so thank you for the info! That is so sad that they are overtaking the local population.

Sunray Gardens said...

Lovely butterfly photos. I haven't really seen that particular ladybug here. I had the green ones maybe 10 years ago. They would manage to get in the house. Quite pesty too and not the sweet little red ones.

I didn't get near the bees this year. Usually you can't get near Sedum once blooming and it was not a big problem.

I definitely have planted for Butterflies mostly and did not get near what I have in the past either. Very sad.
Cher Sunray Gardens

Annelie said...

Just GORGEOUS butterfly pictures, love them.
Ugh, those fake ladybug wannabe's. Hate them.
They can cover a whole sunlit wall of our house, and some of them make their way in to our house.
Dislike.

Annelie

Landbohaven said...

Fantastiske smukke billeder.
Tak for kigget.

HolleyGarden said...

Gorgeous butterfly pics! I'm not sure if we have the Asian ladybugs here or not. As for planting for butterflies, yes, I do think about them. But sometimes I am surprised by the plants they are attracted to most!

sweetbay said...

Your butterfly pictures are beautiful. I do plant with butterflies in mind.

I don't think the Asian lady-bug has shown up here yet, thankfully. We still have a lot of the native ones.

Serenity Cove said...

Agree with the Asian lady bugs. Love the real ones but those imposters are nasty. How do they always manage to get in the house?

Tatyana@MySecretGarden said...

Dear Lona, those beautiful creatures are always with you, in your photographs! The best part is that we can enjoy them too!

Wally said...

I love butterfly photos. The Common Buckeye on the Goldenrod is particularly gorgeous.

Joe Todd said...

Hi Lona, No ladybug problems here at my house in Lancaster. Had deer jumping the fence this summer to get into the veggi garden LOL.. Am feeling better and am hoping to be a little more active. A couple weeks ago I did get the garden tilled and ready for winter..