Hello my friends,

I’ll admit the last couple of weeks have got away from me slightly, I genuinely cannot believe how busy I’ve been and at the same time don’t feel as though I’ve achieved anything (if that makes sense!).

Still, I’ve got a new butterfly tale for you this week. All summer I’ve been raising various butterflies (like I do each year!) the garden has been wonderfully filled with Comma (Polygonia c-album) and Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) caterpillars in the nettle patch that grows under the apple tree in my garden – unfortunately the nettles themselves are giant and literally grow up into the branches of the tree, I try to leave them alone as much as possible but once the spears are over six foot tall I clip them down to the ground and challenge them to grow again!

When it comes to cutting them down I actually check each spear and save the bugs, this year there were so many caterpillars I decided to create a ‘caterpillar nursery’ and try to recreate the nettle patch using potted nettles (yes, I also grown the stingy stuff in pots!).

Red Admirals in particular are always at risk of being attacked by parasitic flies/wasps which is a horrible way for them to die. So I get very excited when I them in the garden.

I’m totally fascinated with caterpillars, Red ad cats are fairly beige when tiny but when fully grown can be either black with a light green stripe or green which I magical! And Commas are little black cats that that become black/white/orange as they grow – its quite a pretty caterpillar, they have such cute antennae.

Just to point out my usual butterfly raising disclaimer, I’m only rescuing the ones I can identify as eggs as some caterpillars can be tricky to raise or are protected species. If I don’t trust that I can look after them properly and give them the right food plant/proper environment then my plan is always to just leave them alone.

This photo is pretty helpful, as a Comma and a Red ad happened to pupate next to each other. The lighter curvy one at the front is the Red ad and the darker more angular one at the back is a Comma. I love the 48 or so hours before the main event when the chrysalis becomes translucent and you can see the butterfly inside! 

I really try my best to replicate the outside when I know I’ve got incoming butterflies and like to add a selection of flowers from the garden and orange slices for instant food.

The big release day came in stages this year (as they were all different ages) and off they flew out into the big wild world! The Rudbeckia was super popular and if I could only pick one plant to grow it would be Verbena bonarensis – which is a plant all pollinators enjoy.

All in all over the summer months I raised 23 Comma butterflies and 47 Red Admirals. The majority flew off so quickly I didn’t get many photos of them, but the ones who were nice enough to stick around stayed in the garden for hours (including these three who were released today) and at this point in October I still have another two Red Admiral pupa waiting to emerge!

I really hope you enjoyed this little slice of fluttery goodness! I feel super privileged to have been able to raise these boys and girls, especially as our butterflies are in decline!

As always thank you so much for reading this post and have a great week!