Eastern ⚫️ Swallowtails + HOW LONG should I Wait to Release Monarchs❓🙌

Happy Sunday Good GROWer,

I hope you’ve had a good week and are seeing more monarchs and pollinators fluttering throughout your garden and surrounding community…

🌿 Garden PLANT Report 🌺

So what’s growing on in the garden this week?

• on the brink of blooms: goldenrod (more on this next week when the blooms unfold!)

• most of our Mexican Sunflower plants are blooming except for the ones planted in mostly-shade. I’m not giving up on them, but curious to see what they look like in a couple weeks when peak migration starts (more on MSF in your next newsletter)

Now, for those raising a few monarchs this season, check out these tips on safely releasing monarchs and what factors help us decide how long to keep butterflies before releasing them back to nature…🕰️

During this time of year, I get a lot of questions about how to release monarchs, when to release, what to feed grounded butterflies, etc...

Our successful release process will be outlined in today's Raise The Migration post to help you learn how to safely release monarchs back to nature.

But first, a quick update on what’s in stock in the butterfly supplies shop:

8 Packs of floral tubes with flat lids ⬅️ (large 48 ml floral tubes for holding milkweed for caterpillars OR nectar flower cuttings for butterflies)

8 pack little hole lids ⬅️ (these are extra lids for thin-stemmed milkweed cuttings to prevent caterpillar drownings)

We are completely sold out of cages, cage liners, + tube racks but you can find alternative options linked on our:

Raising Butterflies Supplies Page ⬅️

Now, on to safely releasing monarch butterflies back to nature…

Release Your Butterflies! 🙌 🦋

Your magical monarch adventure is coming to an end. It's time to release your butterflies so they can fill up with fuel (nectar!) before heading off on the trip of a lifetime. You've gotten them this far, so don't put them in a precarious position when you let them go:

How to SAFELY Release Monarch Butterflies ⬅️ 👍 🦋🦋🦋

If you’re interested in tagging please check the UPDATED info from the link above…especially for those that live west of the continental divide.

🕷️Garden WILDLIFE Report 👀

Black swallowtails have been few and far between, but this is typical for our garden as we don’t have very many eastern black swallowtail host plants.

If you’re interested in learning which host plants and nectar flowers you should consider to attract them, check out our page on the:

Eastern Black Swallowtail Life Cycle ⬅️

also, click the link above to learn how to identify this is NOT a black swallowtail:

Coming Up Next?

We’ll continue to report on plant success and failures, and expected and unexpected garden visitors…

Until next time,

Tony your Butterfly Guide