Monarch Butterflies And Blooms

I raised these beautiful monarch butterflies indoor winter of February 2022. It was nice to see them enjoy the houseplants blooms.

Wow, Gigi, how wonderful that you raised them! They're beautiful!

Excellent banner Gigi!

Those are all beautiful photos, Gigi, makes a great banner all together.

Monarchs of the garden.....what beautiful creatures.
I hope everyone will grow milkweed for them as they
migrate. They seem to prefer the orange variety.

Could you please post the individual panel pics &
more if possible?
Great banner, Gigi.

Bravo, Gigi! Excellent work!

everyone for all the s comments and tips! It's really a joy to watch them grow from caterpillars to chrysalis and then to emerge as a beautiful monarch butterflies.

Here are the full sized photos, they emerged different times:






You have to look closely on this one to see the monarch butterfly.


It was a wonderful feeling to raise them indoors and set them free when weather was warmer.

Beautiful banner! How did you stitch the individual photos together to make the banner?

Completely awesome, Gigi! The pics and the story behind!!

Thanks for posting all the pics....each one is special.


Monarch on bonsai'd bougainvillea....that's extra special.

Stunning site banner Gigi!. I love that you raised them!!

BTW, we babysat ~50 Monarch caterpillars as they went from egg to
butterfly 5yrs ago, putting them on milkweed in "incubators" (20 gal aquariums).
It stated out innocently enough....I bought a 1 gal milkweed at a nursery.
When I got home, found the eggs on the leaves. Soon there were more
baby Monarchs than enough leaves.

So had to buy more milkweed.

Eventually spent $$$ to keep the kids well fed.
But most made it, and we sent them off like proud parents, hoping they'd
make it down to Mexico. 🤞 🤞

I was even able to catch one of them on video making their chrysallis, and later
emerging, though others have done much better videos. Hard to catch them in the act, as theyonly take ~15min for both events.

Now we just keep several milkweed in the garden, and if I see caterpillars, I make sure they each have their own stalk if possible, as they don't share well.

Beautiful combo pic
Butterflies and blooms makes my heart sing.
'Spring has arrived'.

I was out of pocket for a day and it is nice to check online to see all the s, comments and tips!

It is really a beautiful experience to raise these beautiful monarchs!

Lori, I created an album of all these beautiful photos. Then I took a screenshot of the photos within the album to create the banner.

Great job, Gigi!

Cal!

Inspiring.

dgoddard said: Inspiring.

Neat idea to have the adults feed on houseplant blooms during winter. You must have lots of houseplants! They would starve in my house.

lauriemorningglory said: Neat idea to have the adults feed on houseplant blooms during winter. You must have lots of houseplants! They would starve in my house.

The adults would only want to stay for a day or 2 after they emerge then they will keep flying to the window where they can see the light. Telling us they want to go out. I had to supplement their food with fresh fruit juice (pineapples and star fruit). I didn't try the honey.