My Plan to Get More Monarch Butterflies in my Florida Garden

Welcome to my Florida Butterfly Garden, in this video I am feeling like I need more Monarch Butterflies in my life. My backyard butterfly habitat has lots of butterflies, but not as many Monarchs as I usually have. Join me on my hunt for Monarch Butterfly caterpillars in my garden and see my plans to raise some Monarch caterpillars so they get the chance to fly free as butterflies in my garden. We will discuss different varieties of milkweed, the reason why I haven’t been raising them and the devastating effects of OE (a parasite). I hope you find some inspiration from my channel and I would love to hear about your gardening adventures in the comments.

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hey everyone welcome to my Florida butterfly garden i am missing my monarch butterflies i usually have a lot of them flying around in my garden so we’re just going to do a little something something to boost their little population and get more of them flying around and I’m going to bring you along in my garden searching for monarch caterpillars okay so remember these two tropical milkweed plants I have in my garden room growing under grow lights because I don’t want these out in my garden but I will use them to feed caterpillars well this one’s pretty much grown back from the last time they ate it all the way down so we’re just going to set this in here and then if I find anybody I’ll just move them on to this plant the first place I’m going to look where I have a good deal of swamp milkweed is in this raised planter and you can see there’s a lot of munching action that has been going on and this looks like it’s the freshest let’s check this plant over see if we can see a little caterpillar anywhere hello are you here see that’s worrisome as you know they were here and something ate them which is why I want to bring a few in to raise just to give the population a little boost surely oh score just about to say surely there’s got to be one and there’s one all right i’d love to find four or five so we’ve got one and all I’m going to do is I’m just going to take this leaf off and I’m going to go lay it in on the plant in the enclosure okay here I am back out in the same general area sometimes I just like to kind of go and look upside down like the camera is upside down but so am I is that little caterpillar right there no no that was just a shadow all right and then sometimes I’ll very gently take the whole plant and kind of flip it cuz the caterpillars like to hang out on the underside of the leaves there’s some munching up on this one okay let’s move over into here um these munchen marks look older because it’s already got the browning around the edge of the plant that means the plant’s already put its defenses in place to save itself and that doesn’t happen immediately so when you see this you know it’s not recent caterpillar activity and I don’t see anything that looks fresh on here and I’m not going to be able to get anybody if they’re in there all right let’s keep on keep on moving down the line here’s this one that’s going to bloom yay looks like there’s been some activity down here again it looks older it doesn’t look like anything’s been munching that wow this one though look at that there’s been a lot of activity there but then we’re down inside see if there’s anybody on the edge okay i don’t see Anyone else keep on moving oh look look look look look look who’s right there yay all right that’s two grab this leaf look how adorable this is a little one okay we’ll set you right there you know what’ll be funny is when I edit I’ll see things that I didn’t see when I was out here looking i could be talking about “Oh I can’t find any caterpillars.” There’ll be like three caterpillars in the picture so funny look at this borage with the water dripping off of it isn’t that beautiful i I love this plant guys there’s just something about it that I just love it i’ll probably grow it always just so I can come out and look at it if nothing else look at this one oh it’s just holding that big water droplet is there a bug in there what is in there why are you brown nope i thought maybe there was a bug in the water droplet so my next place that I have some milkweed is in here and there’s not a lot but there is a little bit poking out the top of the little cages so let’s see if we can find anybody i don’t see any leaves sticking out see do you see the lack of finding this is why I need to raise some and we’ll get this all going again look at this look here’s another one right here you see who’s down there sitting on it yeah they’re one of the culprits for why caterpillars disappear mhm but I don’t see any fresh marks on this plant either okay let’s keep moving oh look at this new zindia coming that one’s going to be beautiful okay the next place that I have milkweed is right here the little hanging basket and then the one plant that I moved right here now this hanging basket I don’t see any I trimmed that off signs of munching at all so we’ll just leave that one but here no signs of [Music] munching no signs of [Music] munching i don’t even see any eggs oh dear we’ve only got two caterpillars guys all right our last hope is down at where the balloon milkweed is let’s go down there okay so I have my giant milkweed here which I looked at the other day i didn’t see anybody and then over here’s the balloon ugly now this is where I’m a little hopeful find at least one more [Music] somebody oh look there’s an egg all right i’m going to take that egg in and you know what i’m going to experiment on that egg mhm we’re going to try something oh there’s another egg okay goody goody lots of water droplets all right so I’ll come back and get those leaves i’ll set up a little incubator like I used to do i miss There’s an egg on the stem do you see it down there i’ll have to leave that one um I I used to film so much about raising monarchs but then oh my gosh since our population here in Florida is year round our group of monarchs are different than the migratory monarchs so you know we don’t have that scary sense of like tropical milkeed using it and stopping them from migrating and all of that now in northern Florida they do because they’ll still go migrate through there but ours usually go like south to South Florida if it gets cold and then they come right back from what I understand I mean nobody is really studying it which is surprising to me but um anyway I miss setting up the little egg incubators and the leaves and you know what there’s a little zebra long one maybe I’ll do that since there’s a couple eggs out here oh look there’s another egg okay and show you how I do that and I’m also going to you know how um OE here in Florida is like hugely prevalent like they’re saying like 95% of the monarchs have it so it’s you know but to keep it from being so oppressive where the monarchs are deformed or can’t fly uh there are things you can do like bleaching um one of the things I’m doing is keeping that milkeed in my garden room so no butterflies can land on it and have the OE spores get on the leaves of the plant that the caterpillars will be eating which is how that is transmitted so I’ve got that going but there’s another thing called egg bleaching where you bleach the eggs and it the bleach will kill the spores you have to use a 5% um bleach solution in water 5% bleach 95% water and it will supposedly kill the spores and I’ve done that before and it didn’t always work i would test the monarchs after they closed and they still had OE but probably had less than they would have so hang on a second there’s this new product well it’s not new new but it’s newer in the skin in the skin care world called hypocchlorous acid and what it does is it kills bacteria and things like spores so people like use it on airplanes they’ll spray it on their face like if they have a lot of problems with their um micro biome on their skin like with acne and stuff and it just kind of is supposed to kill all of that stuff so I thought well instead of using bleach what if we put some of the hypocchlorous acid cuz I would never spray bleach on my skin but the hypocchlorous acid is safe so I did some research and um it says the hypocchloric acid will destroy spores now will it destroy oe spores i don’t know but you know what with everything going on with monarch butterflies and the struggles it can’t hurt to try so I’m going to spritz a little hypocchlorous acid on the leaves that the eggs are on and then just rinse it off will I know if it did anything no I don’t have a way to test how much how many spores are on the eggs initially but if I if I um get a healthy cat not caterpillar if I get a healthy butterfly out of it then it’s worth doing because the hypocchlorous acid isn’t expensive and you know me the I’m always experimenting so that’s what I’m going to try let me grab those eggs didn’t you love that little little lesson on hypocchloric acid mhm and I’m going to take them in we’ll set up an incubator we’ll spritz the eggs and rinse them and see what happens okay I’ve got I think six eggs five or six eggs so let’s take them in and get them set up there’s some butterflies out polyama swallow tail love it yesterday um I released a pipeline swallow tail it was just ready to go look here’s a monarch hello [Music] monarch it’s probably one of the ones that I raised they love fire bush okay here are my eggs all laid out on the leaves and then there’s that little part that was turning into a flower and there’s a little egg on it and this is the hypocchlorous acid and so clinically tested for sensitive butterfly eggs no not true this is just my own little thing all right so I’m just going to spray it on it’s a real fine mist going to let it sit on few seconds to do its [Music] thing and then if there’s spores on these leaves too mhm maybe it will kill them maybe it won’t okay so here we go i’m going to take my little water holder and I’m just going to hold it over this container and rinse all the hypocchlorous acid off and then I have prepared this is a seed starter i put paper towel on the bottom of it i’m just going to lay the leaf in there get these other ones rinsed and then we’ll just follow these guys through on my channel and see if they well first of all hatch and if they don’t hatch can we assume it’s the hypocchlorous acid no cuz there’s a bunch of things sometimes they’re the eggs are not fertilized um sometimes the eggs are just Oh this one’s going to be hard let me Let’s get you there sometimes the eggs are just not viable so you know But if they do hatch and they result in gorgeous butterflies then you know that’s a good thing and that’s what we’re all about is getting more butterflies into the world although I prefer getting more butterflies into the world by having more host plants in the world but you know sometimes we have to give it a little extra nudge and I love doing that i love raising them the reason why I don’t raise them anymore is because of OE um I’m cleaning the lid there’s a lid here it’s just a little dusty so you’re going to hear crinkling while I’m talking as I’m wiping it down um I have seen so many monarch butterflies eat clothes with the devastating effects of OE that it’s heartbreaking and I just don’t want to see it anymore often than not sorry about all the crinkling i see it more at the end of the season like in the fall spring is way better but even still um I I will see some of it in the spring but in the case Why doesn’t this lid fit why don’t you fit lid oh it’s okay it’s set on there good enough let me leave the vents open a little bit and one more thing I want to do i forgot i want to um get the paper towel a little bit damp just so that the leaves don’t dry out of course there was some water on them so there we go a little bit of moisture and humidity building up so anyway I just didn’t like seeing it so I stopped raising them i also did not really promote raising them on my channel because there’s so much involved there’s so much that can go wrong and there’s a lot of people out there that have strong emotions about it and they’ll start sharing these articles with you that have just been going around and around and they’re mean and they bully people in the Facebook groups about all things and what I found is most of them are good-hearted and they they want to do what’s best for the monarchs but there’s a kind way to educate people and a rude bullying way acting like a knowit all way and I don’t appreciate those people and I wish they’d figure out the kind way so if you’re having the feeling like you need to tell me about tropical milkweed you don’t and if you want to comment on this video and tell me about these articles and all of this just don’t because I know I know unless you’re Jared Daniels you can talk to me about milkweed and monarchs and that’s all going to say about it because this channel is only for kind-hearted people who love sharing butterfly gardening who love butterflies who love the idea of conservation who love doing what we can to the best of our ability with our gardens to put more habitat for all living things back on this planet so okay I’m done i’m getting off my pedestal now right so I’m just going to go ahead and place this little incubator set up in here in in the lepidarium just to keep it extra safe and I have no idea when those eggs were laid but usually five or so days they’ll hatch so we’ll check every day and see how they do look one of the sweet babies has already crawled onto the leopard plant so cute and look I want to show you in my Durant well first of all there is a Polyama swallow tail enjoying the nectar of the flowers please take a minute and tap the like button too i haven’t said that in like my last I don’t know three or four [Music] videos it does a world of good for my channel but I wasn’t coming out here to see that one earlier this morning um well actually yesterday a spy spice bush followed tail butterfly closed and it wanted out so I let it out and of course I didn’t have my camera or anything and um so it then it wanted to stay put so here it is hanging on my durant still it is a pipe vine swallow tail it was raised on pipe vine in the lepidarium am and when it’s ready it’ll be flying free in my garden there is another pipe vine swallow tail in here that just eclosed and this one’s going to stay put cuz it’s still working its wings it’s not ready to go especially on a drizzly day we’ll see if it clears up a little later maybe it’s a pipe vine swallow tail is that what I said i hope that’s what I said okay so the radar is picking up some heavier rains i just came out to see if this little guy was still here and they are so I am going to take this one back in and put it back in the enclosure and release it again when the weather is better we don’t want those brand new wings having to struggle with a Florida downpour i promise little one you’ll get to fly you can be in there with your little friend two little pipe vine butterflies