How to Attract Monarch Butterflies to Your Garden

Attracting Monarch Butterflies to Your Garden

You too can have Monarch butterflies in your garden! Monarch butterflies are so beautiful and it's always a special treat when one comes fluttering through your yard.  

 

Monarch Butterfly Fluttering Through my Garden

 Don't you wish you could attract more Monarch butterflies to your garden? Well you can! Monarchs would come through my yard and land here and there and I always enjoyed their beauty and presence.

Monarch Butterfly on Coreopsis

Monarch Butterfly on Lantana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  I didn't realize I could have more beautiful Monarch butterflies in my garden and enjoy their presence and life cycle by adding one new item to my garden: The Milkweed Plant

I have many plants in my garden that adult butterflies love to flutter to and enjoy nectar from, but I did not have Milkweed which is the only plant where an adult female butterfly will lay its eggs.

But one day I was at a community garage sale and encountered a couple who were moving. They had a lot of Milkweed plants for sale as they could not take these plants to their new location. Oh! And since they had a lot of Milkweed there were a lot of butterflies around! I thought I would buy one and decided upon a plant that was flowering and going to seed so I could hopefully start some new plants in my garden.  

Flowering Milkweed

Milkweed Seeds

I took the plant home and put it in my garden and did not think too much about it since it was getting late into the season. As the seed pods matured I eventually harvested the seeds to save for the coming year.

The following year the original plant that went to seed grew new foliage in the spring. I also planted some of the Milkweed seeds that I harvested from this same plant and started to see new plants emerge and grow.

One day I found some Monarch eggs on the foliage of the original plant. 

Monarch Butterfly Egg on Milkweed (White Dot on Leaf)

And in a few weeks I had some beautiful caterpillars.

Tiny Monarch Caterpillars on Milkweed

Approximately two weeks later I had gorgeous mature caterpillars almost ready to pupate and go into the chrysalis stage.

Mature Monarch Butterfly Caterpillars on Milkweed

When your Monarch butterfly is ready to pupate it will travel off to a location where it feels safe. Be careful when you are walking outside by your caterpillars, you don't want to step on them as they move around off of the Milkweed. After finding a safe location to pupate a caterpillar will spin a little silk and attach itself by hanging upside down in a J position. Here are a few pictures of different locations my caterpillars found last year to attach themselves. 

Monarch Caterpillars Hanging in the J Position at Different Locations in My Garden

Above you can see these caterpillars chose very different locations to hang in the J position when they started to pupate. One chose to hang from the underside ledge of a planter, another did a similar thing and hung from a plastic pot ledge. Another I found hanging in a large container garden with lots of foliage and was attached to a French Geranium leaf (this one was hard to find). The last one pictured here attached itself to the underside of a glass table. 

Monarch Caterpillars can travel a distance of 10 yards or 30 feet, so keep looking around your garden in hopes that you can find them and watch their development through this stage.

The caterpillars will hang in the J Position for around 24 hours. As the caterpillar is ready to throw off its exoskeleton its antenna will begin to go from straight to twisted. Keep a close eye on it now because soon it will do its final molt and shed its exoskeleton and turn into a chrysalis. Its pupa sack is a beautiful green color along with little gold details. You can see some of this process take place in this video here:

A Monarch Caterpillar Shedding Its Exoskeleton

The Chrysalis or Pupa stage will last for approximately 10 days give or take a few days depending on environment conditions.

Monarch Chrysalises at Different Locations in My Garden

 Toward the end of the chrysalis stage the pupa will seem to darken, but it really is becoming transparent and you can begin to see the newly created butterfly inside just before it ecloses (emerges). 

Transparent Pupa of the Monarch Butterfly

 When the pupa gets to be dark and transparent, keep your eyes open because the Monarch chrysalis will soon eclose.

 

 A Monarch Chrysalis Emerging

After emerging the new Monarch butterfly will hang around for a while as it adjusts to its new surroundings and goes through all the processes that are necessary to be a happy healthy butterfly. It will eventually leave the pupa shell and dry out its wings on surfaces or plants. Enjoy its presence in the garden at this time as it opens and closes its wings during this process. It's also a great time to get photos or videos of the butterfly as it will not fly off and away immediately.

 

I not only attracted more Monarch butterflies to my garden by adding the Milkweed plant, but I also attracted the complete life stages of the Monarch butterfly. The egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and adult butterfly stages of the Monarch butterfly life cycle. What a wonderful experience it has been! And you too can attract Monarch butterflies to your garden. 

Enjoy,

Linda