Painted Lady Butterflies Find Safe Haven In Puslinch
At the end of April, we were busy unloading part of the greenhouse in order to attend the annual native plant sale at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton. There were many larval (caterpillar) plants in crates to be carried out to the back of the trailer and truck.
Floating through all this chaos were 2 painted lady butterflies. How on Earth they came out of hibernation and found our greenhouse through the cold and rainy weather of April was a mystery to me. They immediately found their larval plant, pearly everlasting, to lay eggs all over.
In May, we saw the familiar webbing of caterpillars all over the pearly everlasting and knew we were in luck. Today, all 50 plants are spent and we had to transplant 30+ caterpillars to a new site of pearly everlasting. This will be their last big feeding and then they will crawl off into the garden to hang. Later, they will emerge as our beautiful painted ladies.
How wonderful it was that we were able to share a life’s moment with them. And so the cycle of life continues.
Marion Robertson
