Sapphire's 2025 butterfly garden progress thread

[Sapphire Seasong]

This thread will be for me to share my latest project with you all, turning my families old vegetable garden into a butterflies paradise!

I've already started tilling the dirt and pulling out all the old roots.

Since in the thread talking about peoples favorite non MLP hobbies a lot of people brought up gardening i'm hoping some of you will like following along with this and maybe even have some advice to share.
My main goal is Monarchs since they've proposed to be added as a threatened species.
I've already been trying to learn as much as i can about there needs. It's been very saddening and a little horrifying to learn that the most common milkweed sold for gardens (tropical milkweed) can actually be very dangerous to them so i'm trying to find a local gardening store that sells true common milkweed. (Lowe's sells tropical milkweed mislabelled as common milkweed which is very disappointing) or a good online seller.

This thread will likely be a little slow for the first few mouths while i clean the garden out and get some nice new dirt to get it filled up more, it will hopefully start speeding up as it get warmer and i start getting stuff planted!

 

[DreamValley80's]

I absolutetly love butterflies & birds! I have books on both so I can identify the ones I see. My neighbor loves them too so she lets a few common milkweed plants grow for the Monarchs in her flower beds. They weren't planted so the seeds came from the birds. I know its common milkweed because it dies back and isn't a subshrub. I'm sure you'll be able to find some random growing common milkweed somewhere; if not I'll have to harvest some for you. We haven't seen any Monarchs here in MA (I remember seeing them as a child) but she has a bunch of other butterfly liked flowers in her garden too. I grew a few sacrifice plants this past year to deter the White Cabbage and Black Swallowtail from laying their eggs on my vegatable plants, there larvae eat the plant leaves as fast as they grow.

Looking forward to seeing the progress on your butterfly garden!

 

[Sapphire Seasong]

I absolutetly love butterflies & birds! I have books on both so I can identify the ones I see. My neighbor loves them too so she lets a few common milkweed plants grow for the Monarchs in her flower beds. They weren't planted so the seeds came from the birds. I know its common milkweed because it dies back and isn't a subshrub. I'm sure you'll be able to find some random growing common milkweed somewhere; if not I'll have to harvest some for you. We haven't seen any Monarchs here in MA (I remember seeing them as a child) but she has a bunch of other butterfly liked flowers in her garden too. I grew a few sacrifice plants this past year to deter the White Cabbage and Black Swallowtail from laying their eggs on my vegatable plants, there larvae eat the plant leaves as fast as they grow.

Looking forward to seeing the progress on your butterfly garden!

That would be very kind of you if you'd be able. I live in a nicer neighborhood close to the city so we don't really have any fields or woodsy places where people just let stuff grow.

 

[Sapphire Seasong]

Small update, I've finished clearing all the old roots out and have started gathering bags of soil (never thought i'd be so excited about Costco selling big bags of dirt for 10$ but here i am!)
I've also started getting seeds and bulbs to plant in the next mouth or so.
So far for flowers i got aster, cornflower, crocosmia, blazing star, iris, kniphofia, and morning glory plus some marigold.
I also got common milkweed and showy milkweed seeds which will be spending the next few weeks in the fridge so they'll germinate properly. I'm still gonna try looking for live plants just in case these don't do very well.
Normally i like getting live plant instead of seeds but i'm hoping all of them will do okay. Our stores are only just starting to get spring and summer stuff in so more plants i'm looking for will hopefully show up.

 

[Sapphire Seasong]

Just wanted to share my first live plants i got today!
I got daisy, dianthus, butterfly bush, lavender, and delphinium! I'm especially excited about the delphinium and butterfly bush.

I've already started putting fresh soil in so once i get enough to fill it all the way i can get these babies planted.

 

[baby_sprout]

oooo how pretty! this garden is gonna look so beautiful!

 

[Sapphire Seasong]

Morning Glory and Morning Glory are proud to announce that the morning glory seeds have begun to sprout!

So far we got five little seedlings. they'll all be staying in pots for the next few weeks until they get stronger.

 

[littlereader]

Delphinium and butterfly bush are my favorited. Can not wait to see the end result. Is it warm all year round where you are. I’m in Canada we have a few months to go until we can work the ground.

You are doing a fantastic job

 

[Sapphire Seasong]

Delphinium and butterfly bush are my favorited. Can not wait to see the end result. Is it warm all year round where you are. I’m in Canada we have a few months to go until we can work the ground.

You are doing a fantastic job

Yes, 80% of the year is basically summer down here, It normally only starts staying cold at the very marry end of November and it's already starting to get back to sweating weather, but part of that because all the humidity from being near the coast.

 

[Bright]

How sweet! I'm excited to see how your garden progresses! Where I live, we haven't seen many butterflies this year. Maybe I should consider planting a wildflower border in my yard, to put more food sources out to attract them in. We only counted a single Monarch butterfly this year

 

[DreamValley80's]

The butterfly bush also attracts the hummingbird moth! My neighbor has one and when you first see it you think it’s a tiny hummingbird but really it’s a hummingbird moth. It’s pretty cool to see. Hope you all get to see one too!

So glad you were able to acquire common milkweed seeds but I’ll still check to see if the ones here come back this year and harvest the seed pods.

 

[Sapphire Seasong]

Updates!

Morning Glory is proud to say that her little seedlings are doing very well and there are now nine of them altogether.

And the dianthus's are now the very first plants to be added to the garden!

Also happy to say that while it's still a bit early for butterflies i've seen two bumble bees in the last few days. today i saw one on my butterfly bush which i've planted in another part of our yard.

 

[Parasol]

Morning Glory approves of Morning Glory’s Morning Glories! She’s sooo excited with the progress!!

 

[SweetReads]

What a lovely project!! I can’t wait to see all of your flowers bloom and your pony pictures!!

 

[FizzyMint]

How lovely, my garden needs a lot of TLC I used to have a cute fairy garden with whimsical figures and features. Since I became ill it's been really difficult to keep up with. But this is a very inspiring thread.

 

[Sapphire Seasong]

Updates.

And I've finally been able to add the rest of my live plants into the garden as well as most of the bulbs.
My iris and kniphofia bulbs got a little impatient waiting to be planted so when i finally opened them up they were already sprouting though the plastic!

Baby Flitter is happy to show off how well our aster seeds have been growing the past few weeks. They should be ready to join the garden in no time!

 

[Sapphire Seasong]

Long time no update- whoops

Morning Glory 2 is happy to say that her children are a far cry from the little spouts they were last time they were showed, they've grown very tall and are already making beautiful blossoms


And the garden itself is doing wonderfully

all the plants have taken root and are spreading out nicely and the bulbs have almost all grown in and are doing very well.

I recently got even more seeds that i need to plant/germinate. My most recent addition were several packs of corn flower/bachelor's button and a wild flower mix put into the left side of the garden. Fingers crossed they grow well.

 

[DreamValley80's]

Can’t wait to see your butterfly pictures!

 

[cloverrr]

What a wonderful garden! I absolutely loved looking through the images and seeing how its growing, along with bringing ponies into the mix too. Have you had any insect visitors yet?

 

[Sapphire Seasong]

Can’t wait to see your butterfly pictures!

So far i haven't seen any stop in the garden at all. I see one maybe once every day or so in our yard but they always pass right through.
I've been thinking of swapping the butterflies i cater to.
My milkweed isn't doing very well. Very few of the seeds have sprouted and the ones that did aren't making much progress. And I'm yet to have a sure monarch sighting. (I saw a large orange butterfly about a month ago but it was on the other side of the yard and flew over the fence before i could get a good look.)
I've been thinking of switching to targetting either Black swallowtails, Gulf fritillary or Little yellows.

What a wonderful garden! I absolutely loved looking through the images and seeing how its growing, along with bringing ponies into the mix too. Have you had any insect visitors yet?

Like said above no butterflies yet but the bumblebees love the lavender!
Also since you like the ponies being along for the ride here's Cherry Blossom with the dianthus from this morning