Click below to listen to my 2 min Garden Bite radio/podcast: Painted Ladies and Red Admirals
I love seeing the butterflies flitting about. Monarchs have been given lots of attention but there are a couple of other types of butterflies that deserve some love.
My Northern Gardener magazine highlights 2 of them. I love Painted Lady.
They are more fascinating as they are found everywhere but Australia and Antarctica. Their migrations are big enough to be spotted on radar! Rhonda Fleming Hayes explains in the article that this is called “irruption”. Thus the crowding of them on my sedum and allium too. They are orange and black, smaller than monarchs and their migration is more dependent on winds and rains than the specific season. They are pretty equal opportunity eaters enjoying aster, ironweed, blazing star and more.
I’ve also spotted Red Admirals in my gardens, though not yet this year. They’re found throughout North America from Mexico to Canada.
They have black wings with stripes of orange on the outer edges and white spots that look a bit like epulates that denote an Admiral.
Red Admirals are generally found along the edges of woods and near streams, gardens and open grassy areas. I’ve seen them in my own landscape at my asters and on milkweed. Their favorite though, is tree sap. Some will hibernate during our winters, others travel travel south.
