Monarch butterfly on Butterfly Weed

This image has been added to the PRINTS gallery.

It is November and the Monarch butterflies in this area have already migrated south for the winter. I chose to use this picture of a Monarch butterfly perched on the flowers of the Butterfly Weed as tribute to the end of the season, like we celebrate Thanksgiving. And it is Dottie’s favorite picture (Happy Birthday!) from the past year.

I have a love/hate relationship with Butterfly Weed. It’s a perennial plant that I recommend for any garden. It belongs to the milkweed family and milkweeds are host plants for Monarch butterflies. Butterflies and bees love it. Its flowers are beautiful and the plant has a useful role to play in any garden. And since it’s a milkweed, in the fall it releases its seeds to the wind by the seed pods that grow upward from the pollinated flowers. The seed pods are really cool all by themselves. What more is there to love? And yet, it is one of the few plants that I just cannot get to grow. I know that it’s my fault, now I just have to just figure out why – DO NOT let this make you shy away from planting it if you can. When it gets established, Butterfly Weed is well worth the investment.

I noticed something about Monarch butterflies while I processed this image. A Monarch butterfly’s coloring resembles that of the flowers on one of its host plants, the Butterfly Weed. Is it by accident or design? I am guessing by design. As usual, nature never fails to amaze me.