🎥 Butterfly Milkweed + BIG Garden Caterpillar! 🧐

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It’s the end of June Good GROWer,

and we’re still getting drenched with soaking rains in the twin cities. Everything is green and growing with one tiny glitch to end the week. I saw a single zebrina hollyhock stalk violently swaying in calm winds…

I snuck outside to spy the perpetrator and there he was…a tiny baby bunny tackling the hollyhock stalk like a pro football player, with SOOOO much clover in the yard… WHYYYYYYY? 😱 Anyhow, he broke the stalk, but the plant should survive. I saw him running like the wind the next day. He seems much more spastic than the little one that penetrated our de-fence-es last season. 🐇 Hopefully, he won’t be a little tasmanian devil in the garden. By this point, the plants I worry about most are too big for the little guy to decimate, so hopefully he’ll develop a taste for the clover… ☘️ 🙄 

Pests are a regular part of gardening, but I’ve found it’s much easier to work with nature than against it, hence our ample supply of clover throughout our property. What are you doing to work with nature this season❓🤔

The garden tour continues today with the last of three off-deck gardens, which includes more zinnias, a late season nectar flower and both native and non-native milkweeds.

But first, an update on this week’s garden visitors….

Garden Wildlife Report

I’ve been seeing more bees and other ‘smallinators’, mostly in the sedum ground cover plants…I did find a surprise guest on the garden tour today, which you’ll see further down in today’s video…

Garden Plant Report: SUNNY Yellow Blooms

This week, the dwarf sedum is in full bloom, false sunflowers, yellow state fair zinnias, and zowie yellow flame zinnias are bringing sunshine to the garden over this stretch of rainy days.

There are still 4 more gardens to show you, but this may get pushed back because Raise the Migration Starts in just two weeks, and there’s more preparation this year than usual.

Zowie Zinnia

These are some of the most striking zinnias you’ll see with their contrasting colors and over the years, a monarch-favored zinnia in our gardens:

Sunny Sedum

Sedum ellacombianum (aka Japanese stonecrop) is a ground cover sedum that attracts many smallinators including some butterflies like skippers. It spreads aggressively, but it’s easy to pull and ads a pop of yellow color from late spring into summer:

Purple Milkweed UPDATE

The Asclepias purpurascens is now in full bloom:

There are still more gardens to unveil in upcoming newsletters…For now, check out the latest edition of our Spring Garden Tours below…

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🎥 Garden Tour: SUNSHINE Deck Bed 🌞 

This is the sunniest garden on our property this season featuring flowers with yellow, orange, and red flowers.

Here’s what’s growing, and what will be blooming for butterflies later this season:

Garden Resources

Below are a few of the standout plants featured from the above video to consider now, or for future gardens:

Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly milkweed) ⬅️ (host plant and nectar source for monarchs and more)

‘Hello Yellow’ Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly milkweed) ⬅️ (a cultivar with sunny yellow blooms)

Sedum ellacombianum (Japanese stonecrop) ⬅️ (ground cover sedum with vibrant yellow blooms for pollinators)

Zowie Yellow Flame Zinnias ⬅️ (the most beautiful zinnia of them all?) 🌼👑

New England Asters ⬅️ (late-season native nectar flower with purple or magenta blooms and contrasting yellow centers)

🦋 Spread the GOOD BUZZ 🐝

If you enjoyed this post and aren’t subscribed to this newsletter or know of another pollinator gardener or butterfly lover who might find it useful, please share the newsletter subscription page by copying and pasting the link below:

https://growthemigration.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Coming Up Next?

I’ll be sharing more from our gardens and revealing more details about Raise the Migration 2025.

Until Next Time,

Tony your Butterfly Guide