Hey friends! 

This weeks post is kinda short but also totally unexpected!

I’ve got a little surprise Butterfly Tale to share with you…I’ve somehow managed to raise a Holly Blue butterfly without even knowing he was there! Basically I’ve got various caterpillar food plants all potted up in my butterfly house in the off-chance that I ever find the caterpillars that eat them. Including an ivy plant which is one of the main food plants of the rather pretty Holly Blue.

I’ve got all manner of plants potted up in my butterfly house including a pot of ivy – supposedly, English Ivy (Hedera helix) is a natural, low-cost solution for reducing indoor humidity and tackling dampness so I thought it would help out there over the cold time of the year (the humidity is crazy high here!). My slightly ragged plant has been housing this little fella all winter and I only realised when I went into my (now dry and back to normal) butterfly house! Isn’t he cute?!

Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus) is our earliest emerging and most common blue garden visitor they exhibit sexual dimorphism – the males have bright blue wings whiles the females are also blue but black wing edges. Both sexes have a tiny wingspan of just 35mm!

He was in quite a hurry to fly away and totally refused to show off his lovely wings, so I’ve added a photo I took of another male Holly Blue back in 2022.

I’m quite pleased to have been able to give this tiny creature somewhere safe to finish his life cycle.

For next week I think I’m gonna try and create a pair of needlework Holly Blues. As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!