Garden Club of Cape Coral | Black swallowtail butterfly
After a terribly cold January, I was wondering when the butterflies would show up. Low and behold, a black, 4-inch-wide swallowtail butterfly showed up in my front yard this week! It was fluttering above a flower, balancing itself in mid-air. Its legs held on long enough for it to sip the nectar from the delicate flower.
Black swallowtails are large, about the same size as a monarch butterfly. They are mostly black with a line of gold on the edge of their wings with a blue area in the middle. On the underside there are some bright orange spots.
Attract them to your garden with favorite nectar rich plants: flat flowers, such as gaillardias, zinnias and black-eyed susans, as well as cluster flowers such as verbenas and milkweed.
Black swallowtails will lay eggs on several plants in the parsley family: celery, carrot, dill and fennel. These cultivated plants are found all over the U..S and so are the butterflies. Before Europeans started gardening here, these butterflies selected the plants in the Zizia family on which to lay their eggs. Thus, our native North American plant for growing caterpillars is the Golden Alexander (Zizia aptera). This plant is native to the panhandle, but not to south Florida. To grow these plants here, the seeds must have a cold period. Here, we need to put them in the refrigerator in damp sand for 6 weeks before planting them.
It is much easier to just grow some parsley, dill or fennel. In December, I started some beautiful bronze leafed fennel seeds as well as parsley and dill. They made it through our cold weather and will continue to grow until May or so.
An herb garden can also function as a butterfly garden! The butterflies are welcome to lay eggs on them. Until then, I just pick parsley leaves as I need them. Once the caterpillars arrive, the plant may be completely eaten by them. That is the price to pay for welcoming them to your garden. It is well worth it!
Caterpillars emerge from their eggs disguised as bird droppings. They are bumpy black with a white stripe in the middle. Like many insects, caterpillar skin does not grow with them. So they need to shed their skin five times, and gradually change their appearance. In their later stages, these are the most beautiful caterpillars of all, similar to the monarch, with stripes of black and white plus yellow and orange dots. Like all swallowtails, they have special defensive scent-horns called osmeteria. A pair of orange “horns” can rise up from their forehead to warn predators away with their pungent odor. That smell will make you back up too!
To fill your garden with beautiful butterfly plants, don’t miss the “March in the Park” plant sale! The Garden Club of Cape Coral’s biggest community fundraiser will be held Saturday, March 8, at Rotary Park in Cape Coral from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Sherie Bleiler volunteers at the Butterfly Garden at the Cape Coral Library and Sands Park. She is past president of the Garden Club of Cape Coral. Visit GardenClubofCapeCoral.com. Like us on our Facebook page.
To reach SHERIE BLEILER, please email news@breezenewspapers.com