buckeye – Beth's Planet

Plant Pic, 090223 edition

September 2, 2023Posted in Blog posts, Butterflies, Gardening, Plant PicsTagged Baltimore, buckeye, butterfly, checkerspot, native3 Comments

These are my backyard white turtlehead – in Latin, chelone gabra.

I live in Midland, Michigan, which is USDA Hardiness Zone 6a. In addition, I live in the flat and sandy Saginaw Valley. Much as I would love to grow bird of paradise, to cite just one, it’s not going to happen here.

This year, I have focused on native plants that attract pollinators. The turtlehead – WHITE only, butterflies can be so picky – are said to attract common buckeye and Baltimore checkerspot. I’m familiar with buckeyes from my years tending the emergence case at Dow Gardens‘ Butterflies in Bloom, but never have seen a checkerspot. The turtlehead are among the last bloomers of the year for my yard; the showy goldenrod has not quite burst into glory.

Butterfly Diary 2016, Week 6

April 6, 2016October 1, 2016Posted in Animals, Blog posts, Butterflies, Plant PicsTagged blue morpho, buckeye, Butterflies in Bloom, butterfly, Dow Gardens, gray cracker, Midland Michigan, monarch, orange Julia, red crackerLeave a comment

Trio of butterflies on pink zinnias — This trio enjoying the pink zinnias brought in for the butterflies includes a monarch, orange Julia and buckeye.

A sunny day made occupants and visitors alike happy at Dow Gardens’ Butterflies in Bloom.

One of the questions I was asked most often Tuesday was, as one child put it, “Why are you putting water on the floor?” With sun pouring through the glass, I had to do this about every hour, more often than usual.

I tell people that many of our butterflies come from jungle and rain forest environments, and while we can’t bring in all of their native plants, we replicate their humidity and temperature the best we can.

Five butterflies sunning on orange zinnias — The sun and orange zinnias combined to make this a popular spot.

Some butterfly nicknames make sense, some less so. Crackers get their name because the males make a “cracking” sound when being territorial. The two below are a gray cracker, which is gray, and a red cracker, which is blue.

The butterfly on the right above is a blue morpho. You can just barely see the blue topside at the wing opening. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just wait for it to open, you clearly are not one of the people who has waited 20 minutes or longer for this to happen.

Butterfly Diary 2016, Week 2

March 9, 2016October 1, 2016Posted in Animals, Blog posts, Butterflies, Plant PicsTagged buckeye, Butterflies, Butterflies in Bloom, Dow Gardens, great yellow Mormon, malachite, Mexican bluewing, Midland, pipevine swallowtail, starry night cracker, swallowtail, zebra longwingLeave a comment

A little girl asked why one butterfly didn't have eyes and I said it did, but they were black ... like this one's

This week I’ll largely post photos. That’s what most people want anyway.

There was a lot of emergence in this, the first full week of Dow Gardens’ Butterflies in Bloom. We also had three mating pairs, which I haven’t seen this early on. For the most part people kept a respectful distance, but one woman plucked a mating pair off a marigold when I was busy elsewhere and put them on her toddler grandson to photograph. SERIOUSLY? Like you’d want to be bothered that way. And no, they were not at all inclined to separate; I don’t know how long they go at it, but some of them remained fond of each other for my entire 2-hour shift.