Rita - I grow parsley more for the butterflies than for my family. I didn't know it, but Parsley is a perennial here in Florida. I've had the same parsley plant for 4 years growing in a container. It goes dormant in late summer/fall and comes out of dormancy in Winter/Spring. Who knew?!!!

Humm, mine always dies but I plant more.

I just did a search and read that Parsley is a biennial plant. Mine has been growing back every year now and it has foliage once again currently. I planted it in the container garden as a young plant in early Spring of 2010. This is the 4th Winter as it was probably started from seed in the Winter of 2010 before I bought it from the nursery. It does not appear to have spread, it looks like the same old plant with new leaves every year. Go figure! It has never flowered because the caterpillars eat it down to soil level. I wonder if that is why it has never flowered and the foliage comes back every year? I bet if it were to eventually produce flowers and seeds that it would then die. I don't really know, but it is very unusual!

I had no idea they were host plant for Swallowtails. Thanks Rita!

They are host plants for the Eastern Black Swallowtail butterflies!

We learned we need to plant a LOT more parsley for these hungry guys.
They completely demolished every leaf overnight.
When we ran out of parsley the little guys went to school and we purchased parsley at the grocery store to keep them going.

Wow, they were really hungry.

Nice article! I'm a new Monarch Waystation, & North American Butterfly Association certified garden & planted about 20 fern leaf dill on my front bank last summer, plus sowed 3 pkg. of seed in the fall. Question: Does dill re-seed itself enough so that I don't have to start it every year?

Oh, yah, we're hungry. :greengrin:

Hungry!

They didn't leave much for me.

Garden parsley seems to keep going until it blooms and makes seeds here, however long that takes it. Guess I need to start seeds now...I lost all of the ones I had last year...but there was enough for the few Black Swallowtail caterpillars that showed up. There's one wild kind of parsley that's strictly annual and I haven't seen any of those make it through the summer...they come up in spring and once they complete their seeding out, they die.

Monarchs like the dill too & look so similar to the black swallowtail cats. The monarch cats are striped, but no spots.

Anna - Monarchs do not eat dill or parsley. Their host plant is different species of Milkweed (Asclepias). As far as I know, only certain Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars use dill and parsley as a host plant. Seeing two different caterpillars in the photos is actually the same butterfly caterpillar at different instar growth stages:

http://www.raisingbutterflies....

That is wonderful that you are developing an interest in butterflies! I hope your garden is full of butterflies this Spring!

My photos are Black Swallowtail cats. It's probably my (sometimes) out of focus photography.

Here's one of my Monarch cats.

Good article, Rita!

mcash70 said:Good article, Rita!

Thanks. I don't grow much in the way of herbs but I do grow both Parsley and Dill. Must be in my genes as my mom always grew both parsley and dill in her veggie gardens also.

I grew parsley this past summer in a container, it did pretty well but no cats. We don't like dill so didn't grow any.

Margaret, the backyards birds do unfortunately like to eat up the caterpillars. I have so many birds in the garden here and so do you that I am not surprised some sharp eyed birds found an easy meal. Such is nature.