Who's in the Garden THIS Week❓👀

Happy Sunday Good GROWer,

it’s been a busy weekend hosting friends on Saturday, and then our version of Sunday funday…working in the yarden in 90 degree heat 🥵

Raise The Migration is up and running. Though the course is still coming this year, phase 1 is moving content back to wordpress blog since the shopify blog will be shut down in the next couple months. Hopefully, this won’t be too difficult from a tech standpoint, but please let me know if there are any issues with linked pages, and I will get them fixed as soon as possible.

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

Garden Wildlife Report

Silver Spotted Skipper

in a previous newsletter I mentioned seeing a silver-spotted skipper recently. In fact…I’ve seen several and was able to capture one sipping nectar from a ‘may night’ salvia in our front raised-bed garden:

Leopard Frog JR 👶

This little guy has replaced our full-size leopard frog, but I don’t think he was born in the feature. He’s very skittish (just like the adult USED to be) but he’s slowly warming up to us. Although, when we cleaned the water feature today we removed a container (not knowing he was in it) and he jumped up (an out) about 3 feet into the lawn. Thankfully, he quickly hopped back into the feature without incident 🐸 Here he is hangin’ out on a lily pad:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

In my experience, eastern tiger swallowtails are some of the most curious butterflies in the garden. They will often flutter close to you and won’t fly off if you don’t make sudden moves. This male fluttered onto our deck to warm his wings on an evergreen tree. He was kind enough to pose for this closeup:

Baby Turkeys

This is the first year I’ve seen baby turkeys in our yard. Unfortunately, we were in the process of switching out bird feeders so they probably didn’t find the spilled bird seed they were hoping for. We’re ready now, if they decide to come back:

We have one more garden to show you further down, but first, an update on Raise The Migration…

Prepare MILKWEED for Monarchs❓

The past two years, have brought us ample rains and our garden is a glorious shade of green 💚

This has been slow season (so far) with monarch sightings, but I have seen a regular flow of monarchs in the garden. It’s hard to believe that even a decade ago, there’d be several monarchs floating around daily by now, but monarchs and other pollinators seem to be disappearing before our eyes. I hope we start to see more activity into August and before the migration.

On a positive note, all milkweed species (native and non) look primed to receive monarch eggs.

I’m focusing on about 10 plants for collecting eggs in the near future…6 potted tropical milkweed (in 2 pots) and four more peculiarly placed common milkweed growing through cracks in our deck. 🌿🤷🏽‍♂️

These plants are in great condition, so I’ll debug them to increase my odds of finding eggs. (more debugging info in the linked post below)

Besides the two aforementioned milkweeds, there’s plenty of other milkweed coming up around the yard and I’ll share more info about these plants when I search for eggs next week.

You don't need a ton of milkweed to support monarchs, but I recommend having a few mature plants (3 would be a good minimum) before starting your raising adventures...

Click the link below for some tips to make sure your milkweed is in prime condition to receive eggs and host migration generation monarchs in 2025:

How To Prepare Milkweed to Receive Monarch Eggs❓ « the 5th photo down the linked post shows our debugged milkweed container from last season )

🦋 MBL Shop Update 🦋

As I have mentioned in past newsletters, our raising supply shop is permanently closing this year, but I will remain here to serve you in other ways: newsletter, online courses, etc.

As for supplies for this season:

• TALL baby cages (and all large cages) are sold out

• There’s roughly 45 INVISImesh baby cubes and you can purchase those here:
   purchase a baby cube cage ⬅️

• Don’t worry, I have listed other vendors with similar supplies and will always be testing out cages/accessories to see what the best options are raising forward

Check out all the supply list suggestions for RTM ‘25 here:

Raise the Migration 2025 FULL Supply List ⬅️💡🐛

FINAL Garden Guest?

A bird species we’ve never seen before stopped in for a quick sip 🤷🏽‍♂️

Coming Up Next?

A plant update with some magnificent flower photos + our first blooming Mexican sunflowers of the season! 🌻😍

Have an amazing week,

Tony your Butterfly Guide