At last! Monarchs!

The butterfly garden has its first success

February 2025

A male monarch sunning itself on ponga

Today was incredibly exciting. I finally, FINALLY had Monarch butterflies in the garden! Up until now I have only had a couple of glimpses of them in the area all summer. This has been hard for me because I'm so used to having a few dancing around whenever I went outside at the old house on a sunny day. So imagine my joy when I spotted two in the garden this morning and they decided to stay for a while.

They started by sunning themselves on the top of a couple of trees. The house looks down onto the bush, but it takes time for the sun to get into the valley. However, it wasn't long before they moved into the butterfly garden. Of course I was curious to see what they were choosing to feed on.

Two flowers stood out: The tall, brightly coloured zinnias and the tropical milkweed.

Orange was the favourite colour zinnia, followed by bright pink

One also visited the strawflowers briefly, but they kept coming back to their favourites. I brought tropical milkweed, Asclepias Curassavica, in pots from the old garden and this makes all that hefting of plants from property to property worthwhile.

A monarch on tropical milkweed

You have to remember that whilst monarchs are native to New Zealand, because they got here under their own steam, their food plants are not. In fact I am yet to see a monarch feeding from our native plants, although they are definitely used for shelter. I'd welcome comments from anyone who has seen them on pohutukawa flowers or rewarewa. I will be planting both of those species this Autumn for the bees and birds, but if the butterflies like them too, all the better.

I hung around in the butterfly garden for 45 minutes watching them and then had to get on to adulting adulty jobs. But today marks the first big success of the butterfly garden after only a few months and I couldn't be happier.