12 monarchs in my garden again this year.

[guillaumeb]

It was quite warm in the Chicago area, and my garden has 12 monarchs again this year. Over the past 5 years, I have been giving milkweed to my neighbors and we now have 4 yards will milkweed for the monarchs.

I also have literally hundreds of coneflowers, black-eyed susans, and assorted wildflowers for the butterflies and birds.

The yellow finches are also back feasting on the coneflowers.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Do you have any photos? Those would be grand to see!

[guillaumeb]

4. I have no idea how to upload photos.

I was out yesterday and there were 2 groups of 6 at opposite corners. One group followed me as I walked.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. It's easy. Go to a free web hosting site.

www.postimage.com is one. Upload your photos there, and then take the link they assign to the photo and paste it to your DU post.

[guillaumeb]

11. I will try that. Thank you. eom

[elleng]

2. GREAT!

Wish we could see them.

[guillaumeb]

5. They brighten up the day.

When I was working, the garden was my meditation spot after coming home.

[elleng]

7. Lovely!

[virgogal]

3. Lucky you.

[guillaumeb]

6. Milkweed and wildflowers do the work. eom

[jpak]

8. I've seen LOTS of migrating Monarchs this Fall

I hope this is a Trend!

[guillaumeb]

10. One of my neighbors wants to sow the milkweed along some train tracks near our houses.

I will have plenty of pods to harvest and share, and I promised to give some to him.

[Tech]

12. When we had our home in northeast Wisconsin we had all the flowers and plants you mentioned

As well as beebalm. We would sit in the yard and the bees seemed to enjoy it. The great thing was hummingbirds also stopped while migrating. I miss sitting in that yard.

[Cracklin Charlie]

13. Have you seen any chrysalis?

Two monarch chrysalis appeared on my daughter’s trash can last summer. My granddaughter and I would check them every morning, when I arrived to babysit.

The chrysalis shell itself is clear, so at first you could see the stripes of the caterpillar inside. After a few weeks (can’t remember how long), you could see that the animal inside had turned orange and black.

One day when we went out, the chrysalis looked swollen, and was wiggling. A couple hours later, we saw a monarch butterfly flapping around on the grass out front. We run out, and one of the chrysalis is open, and contents gone, leaving just the clear shell. The other chrysalis never opened.

It was fascinating.

[guillaumeb]

14. No, I never look for eggs or anything else.

I have a sunny section of the garden that is a mass of mixed wildflowers, and I rarely go into it even to weed. The flowers crowd out the weeds.

But a fellow gardener showed me the butterflies in chrysalis stage. She raises them.