This is our first summary and the 5th year for our butterfly garden. This year we hosted our 3rd annual open house which was attended by 170 people over 3 days. In 1994 we started with a 200 square foot garden which will expand to 1280 square feet in 1999 (we are adding about 200 square feet).

Our garden which is urban has high attraction power which is created by growing the proper plants to attract the butterflies.

1998 was an unusual year with heavy rain in the spring which caused butterfly bush to bloom profusely. As a result butterfly bush was the #1 attractor in 1998. The previous two years verbena bonariensis was the best attractor. Since I try not to water my garden at all, my nectar rankings could differ from other gardens. The summer & late spring of 1998 offered hot & dry weather with occasional downpours which caused a "baking effect" with our soil. As a result we had to replant some of our zinnias which just shriveled up. Many people in Montgomery County had difficulty growing zinnia in 1998. The key to growing zinnia is not watering at all if possible. This past year with dry conditions we did water our zinnias three times. This was our first season since 1994 that we did not spot a caterpillar in our garden, although we did have one unexplainable newborn monarch in our garden in October. We feel our zero caterpillar sightings were caused by the "baking effect", the late arrival of the Monarchs, and small populations of Eastern Black Swallowtails.

1998 butterfly sightings were much lower in our garden than in 1997. In 1997 we averaged 5 Monarchs per day and in 1998 we averaged 1 per day. Tiger Swallowtails were down by at least 60%. In 1997 we saw 5 at a time. This past season we saw only 1 or 2 at a time. The most alarming decrease was our Eastern Black Swallowtail sightings. My wife and I saw one each. Overall we had less butterflies at our house, although the number of species that we saw in 1998 was encouraging. We enjoyed our first sighting of the Pipevine Swallowtail which we captured on film, and we really did see a Cloudless Giant Sulphur twice during the week of September 7th. Sure you did!

1998 brought some unique highlights. We added the Pipevine Swallowtail and the Cloudless Giant Sulphur to our list of rare sightings which also include a Zebra Swallowtail, Compton Tortoiseshell, and Tawny Emperor. 

This year we were visited by the Viceroy & the Mourning Cloak on the watermelon. We have concluded watermelon to be the best fruit attractor. We plan to discontinue bananas, but keep apples. On September 22nd we had 8 monarchs at 6pm in our garden. On October 7th we had a monarch with a temperature of only 62 degrees. On October 26th we had two Monarchs with the temperature at 70 degrees and on October 27th we had one Monarch with a temperature of 65 degrees. These were my first sightings ever with the temperature under 70 degrees. These Monarchs were all found in a Southwestern Exposure. 1998 was a great year for our plants - we had 5 foot milkweeds and 4 foot zinnias. Our continued experiments with attraction power for your backyard and our backyard have been extremely successful, and we look forward to attracting butterflies in 1999.

On a personal note, we appreciated meeting Butterfly Bob Snetsinger from Penn State, Jane Ruffin from Rosemont, PA, and Karl Gardner, lepidopterist, from Berks County. We also consider our visit to Butterfly House at Hershey Gardens noteworthy.

See you in 99.

Ron Richael