BUTTERFLIES

Everything I go to the Native Garden, I would drop by the Butterfly Garden because they are located next to each other. So these photos were also taken on 19 May 10.

I never really know the Lime Butterfly until I worked on this project. Since then, I love it so much. The wing design patterns are just so spectacular and I am happy that it is the most common urban butterfly. Occasionally, I see it laying eggs on my lime plants and have caterpillars to watch frequently. However, recently I have not seen any caterpillars for a while even though I now have 2 lime plants. I hope the adult butterflies come soon.

The other big butterfly that was successfully bred in the BG was the Tree Nymph. Its black and white beauty is so clean and classic. The ones in the attached photos look so pristine, so they must have eclosed only recently. Even in the animal kingdom, some animals are very clear and everything is in black and white and have no shades of grey in between. Visitors never fail to be in awe of this butterfly because of its size and slow clumsy flight. Unfortunately, it is not a native butterfly.

PSEUDERANTHEMUM BICOLOR

Recently, our nursery's Pseuderanthemum bicolor flowered so profusely that I used some of them for the Garden Of Seasons in early Feb and at the Butterfly Garden on 12 Feb 10. Otherwise, I don't really find this shrub species very attractive even though the underside of the leaves are purplish brown.

What surprised me was that after placing the plants in the Butterfly Garden enclosure on 12 Feb 10, all the Tree Nymphs flocked to it, as evident on these photos taken on the same day! My gosh, I did not know that this plant was so attractive to this butterfly species like fish to water.

On some pots, there were at least 6-7 butterflies on them. Frankly, I didn't smell anything from these flowers but clearly the butterflies could track them and zoomed in on them. So I told my staff this is a must have plant for the new Butterfly Garden.