Earlier this year we began our adventures in the world of home gardening. There’s just something serene about planting, watering and then eventually watching the fruits of your labor grow (literally!). One of our plans for our home garden was to design and beautify our front yard.
After a few months of trial and error with different plants, potting mixes and tools, we decided it was finally time to tackle our front yard. The vision for the front yard was always to build a beautiful butterfly garden which would attract these gorgeous creatures and fill our entryway with amazing fragrance.
So, just like every other newbie gardener, I loaded up my 4 kids and drove down to to the only nursery I knew of.
Lucky for me, outside of the nursery was a big sign with a giant picture of a monarch butterfly. We went inside and located the section dedicated to butterfly plants. In my attempt to include the kids in the entire process, I thought it would be a good idea to let the kids pick out the plants. It was indeed a good idea but just a slightly premature execution. The minutes that followed the announcement were pure chaos. The kids ran around the nursery picking up random plants and adding them to our cart. Within mins our cart was full of randomness. Thankfully, they were able to return everything back in its place just as quickly.
We regrouped and decided, this time, to have each child select two plants of a single variety.
All the plants we bought were appropriate for our zone (zone 10). They are also perennials, which means we only have to plant them once. Here’s what we bought:
Lanata bloomify
Pentas plant
Milkweed (which we later found out is THE host plant to the monarch butterfly.
A couples weeks later, while watering the plants, we noticed caterpillars chewing away on the milkweed leaves. By the time we actually saw these caterpillars, they were almost full size (about 2 inches long).
Day 1
Day 2
Over the next few hours and into the next day we kept a close watch on the caterpillars, counting them periodically to make sure none were lost. A couple hours after our initial inventory in the morning, the kids noticed that the leaves of the two milkweed plants were almost completely gone. By 3 o clock in the afternoon, the ten hungry caterpillars had managed to eat ALL of the milkweed leaves. We hurried back to the nursery and purchase several more plants.
After bringing the plants home, the kids carefully transferred all of the Hungry Caterpillars to the new plants.
Days 3 & 4
On the morning of day 3, we discovered several chrysalis around our patio area. A couple of our caterpillars had even formed their pupa on the plant itself.
It took 2 days for all of our caterpillars to reach this stage. There were far less pupa, but we are hopeful that some of our guests managed to find safe homes around the yard and one day we will discover empty pupa in unexpected areas.
Day 9 & Day 10
When we woke up one beautiful Thursday morning, here’s what we found:
It was beautiful, subhanAllah. We were like kids in a candy store searching around to find which pupa had a butterfly emerge and which were still in their cocoon.
This one hatched just a minute or two after I took the picture. Subhanallah! It was incredible.
One of the caterpillars made its pupa on a nearby potted plant. We didn’t even know the pupa was there until we saw the emerging butterfly.
… a couple hours later the butterflies left their homes. To all our butterflies who founded their home in our backyard, we look forward to your visits and we hope you will lay some eggs on our milkweed plants so that we may have more opportunities to experience the miracles of Allah.
To see the caterpillar eggs hatch, and then to get to watch them grow and eventually build their cocoon and then miraculously emerge days later as a gorgeous butterfly, is truly incredible. I’m at a loss of words. All I can say is, Subhanallah. We’ve been blessed to see the teeny tiny baby caterpillar since our intial discovery and currently are host to 4 new hungry caterpillars who have already grown so much. May Allah continue to bless us.
***update: Its been several weeks since we first brought home the milkweed plants. Every few days, a new monarch visits our garden to lay eggs on the plants. A few day later, we spot hatched caterpillar. Often times, we don’t see it until it is ready to form the pupa. But, Alhamdulillah we have gotten the opportunity to experience is this several times and yet, every time we see a butterfly and suspect its laying its eggs, the kids and I are so thrilled. One would think we this was our very first experience. Such a hands on experience and one that is continually occurring teaches such children so much more than any trip to a butterfly garden.
We have been working on stocking their library with books about the monarch butterfly. This way, whenever they have questions or an interest arises after having an encounter with this beautiful creature, they are able to reach for approved materials to help them understand. With every new experience, both the children and I learn so much. Mashallah.
Awesome experience…..I also had a similar experience like yours this summer, however your experience was much grander as I only saw the caterpillars and not the pupa stage.