The First Sign of Life

With Spring nearly here in my part of Florida, I've been busy adding wildflowers, ferns, and mosses to my created wetland and to the developing wildflower meadow in the front. A few days ago, a pollinating wasp appeared out of nowhere and spent some time on the flowers of my key lime. Up until then, I had seen nothing around them and I hand pollinated some of the flowers hoping to get a few limes later this summer. I treasure my small annual harvest of these fruit and I feared that my new tree which was blooming so profusely would be giving me none this year. Later that day, I saw a lone honeybee. It has not returned, but I remain hopeful that eventually I will be visited by them routinely; not just one, but dozens at a time. It will take time, however, as there are still so few flowers that suit their needs.
Less than a week ago, a friend gifted me two milkweeds for my newly created wetland - a swamp pink and and a swamp white milkweed (Asclepias incarnata and A. perennis, respectively), to be precise. True friends know where my heart lies and a gift of plants is always one of the greatest presents one can give a gardener. On the day I saw my pollinating wasp working the key lime blossoms, I had a visit by a monarch butterfly as well. As I watched it nectaring on one of the non-native flowering shrubs I have left - a yesterday, today & tomorrow, I held hope that it might also be here because of my milkweeds. Yesterday, my hope was confirmed.
Butterfly gardening is the best quick fix for gardeners devoted to creating a living landscape. Female butterflies (and moths) can detect the aromatic hydrocarbons emitted by their larval host plants in the teeniest of trace amounts - parts per billion. Providing the right plants often has almost instantaneous results because of that. I have no idea why a monarch was even in my urban-desert neighborhood, but it found my new milkweeds and I now have life in my landscape where little else has appeared yet. At this moment, I have two small caterpillars. Over time, I am hopeful that they will mature, pupate and decide to raise a family here as well.
Butterfly and moth gardens require us to plant their larval host plants as a real butterfly garden is not about nectar plants. Host plants can sometimes also serve as a nectar source, but many are not. I have planted a silk bay (Persea humilis) for possible palamedes and spicebush swallowtail butterflies and three species of pawpaws (Asimina spp. ) for the zebra swallowtail. My key lime will serve to feed the caterpillars of the giant swallowtail, and the scrub hickory (Carya floridana) I still plan to plant will pair with the sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) behind my lot line to feed luna moths. I've left the common lawn weeds - cudweed (Gamachaeta spp.), pellitory (Parietaria floridana), and some sida (Sida spp.) alone in places as they each serve as host plants for butterflies I hope to encourage. Butterfly gardeners often make the mistake of placing their focus on nectar when it should be focused on host plants. As I slowly add plants to this new landscape of mine, I will first be adding the plants necessary for my butterflies to raise their young. The nectar sources will be added too, but not as my first priority.