Butterflies

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The little gardener had been given a butterfly kit for her birthday but being a winter child it had been packed away until the weather was more condusive to watching butterflies grow up.



I'm not sure whether you know how these kits work (I didn't) but in a nutshell you get a pop up tent with two sides of clear plastic and two sides of netting, a booklet, a dripper for feeding, a magnifying glass and some tweezers for careful handling.

The idea is that it will allow you to follow the lifecycle of butterflies through their four stages: egg, larva, pupa and butterfly.

When you are ready to proceed you need to send away for your butterfly eggs and this is when the fun started: the recommended supplier was to deliver cabbage whites. Even if you don't garden much you may know that cabbage whites are a serious pest. I was not willing to watch them hatch and metamorphose and fly off, probably to feed on some tasty brassicas, oh no!

Thus began my mission to find an alternative so little gardener could still enjoy this fascinating transformation process. I finally found a supplier to schools who had an amazing range of butterflies (in the making) to choose from and after much deliberation (beauty vs native breed vs eating something that I approve of) we placed an order for some tortoiseshells plus a book for some background reading.

It took many weeks until we took delivery of five golden/copper coloured pupae; it was too late in the season for eggs by now.

I have to say the whole family rooted for these little creatures. We set up the pop up tent in the study, brought in some little stems of buddleia and lavender, and placed the pupae inside. For over a week nothing happened apart from us misting the stems gently twice a day and occasionally replacing the flowers with fresh ones.

But a few days ago the first pupa "hatched" and in the afternoon we saw a small butterfly hanging bat-like from one of the stems. Within three days all the pupae had completed their amazing transformation. The tent was by now on the dining table where we all watched them rest, flutter and feed. The little gardener had fun with dripping a little sugar water on the stems and taking a close look with the magnifying glass.

The day after the last butterfly emerged was the day to release them. The tent was brought in the garden and the lid was left open. Within minutes they all fluttered out and took to the skies. It was a magical moment.