After planting lots of plants to attract the bees to the garden I started to get more interested in planting plants to attract butterflies as well; see my earlier post on Encouraging Monarch Butterflies in the Garden. Seeing the Monarch going through its life-cycle from caterpillar to butterfly made me want to find out more about it. That's when I discovered the Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust.  The trust aims to "conserve New Zealand’s biodiversity so that our butterflies and moths, and … [Read more...]

After planting lots of plants to attract the bees to the garden I started to get more interested in planting plants to attract butterflies as well, particularly after I watched a wonderful, graceful Monarch butterfly just fluttering all around the garden.  It landed on the artichoke and seemed quite content to let me photograph it. So I went down to the garden centre to buy a swan plant - always promoted for attracting monarch butterflies but I had never had one before.  It wasn't a very … [Read more...]