Butterflies in Winter

In reality, there are no butterflies in winter in Alexandria Virginia. This time of year brings little to write about in the garden blog, so I saved a few items from the past year for times such as this. The critter on the left is a 'Clipper,' native to southeast Asia.

The story started last winter with the seed swap I attended. I signed up for Washington Gardener magazine in order to receive a discount on the admission charge. Washington Gardener was the host and gave discounts for admission to its subscribers.

During the year, the magazine ran a contest with a question that asked, "what plant do you regret adding to your garden and why." Boy did I have a lot of material to consider. My response was, “Kniphofia uvaria - because:
  • bloom time is very short
  • for 11 months of the year, the plant is only an ugly tangled mass of leaves
  • takes up too much space for such a little blooming, messy plant”
Anyway, I won one of the prizes - tickets to the Wings of Fancy living butterfly exhibit at Brookside Gardens in nearby Wheaton, Maryland.

After being screened to enter the greenhouse, visitors were treated to a thousand butterflies fluttering about on plants, fruit, and people. Some were native, and some were non-native (butterflies not people.) I was itching to try out the video on my new iPad, so I assembled this collection of photos and video.

Some butterflies were shy, while some were quite convivial. If one stood still, they would land on you. I was sorry for the youngsters who were trying in vain to get one to land - we know young kids cannot be still for a moment. I learned a thing or two about butterflies from the exhibit. It seems these butterflies preferred zinnias and 'rotting' fruit, although the fruit looked pretty fresh to me. They had a sweet spot for watermelon and peaches. Blogger reduces the quality of the video, sorry. Some of the distant butterflies come out looking like fuzz - click the YouTube logo and then select a better quality setting. If reading this on an iPad, the video may be missing.

Dido - native to the Amazon & Andes		Red Postman - native to South America
Emerald swallowtail - Malaysia & Indoneasia		Zebra longwing - North-Central-South America
Leopard lacewing - India to S. China		Malabar Tree Nymph from India
Blue morpho - Central & South America		Queen butterfly - North & South America
Julia Heliconian - Brazil to S. United States		Owl butterfly - Central & South America