
December 17, 2023 How easy – and how wrong – it is, to judge from outward appearances. (1 Samuel 16:7) Along with specific flowers planted in specific places in my garden, I allow, encourage even, one particular wildflower to grow unhindered: the common milkweed. Milkweed is the only plant that monarch caterpillars eat prior to their metamorphosis into beautiful butterflies.
My affection for monarchs came about years ago when my ten-year-old daughter Amy adopted a monarch caterpillar, raising it in a glass jar. Enthralled, we witnessed the miraculous journey of the yellow-striped caterpillar turning into a green chrysalis and then “blooming” into a huge, gorgeous orange-and-black butterfly right before our eyes.
In my garden this year, milkweed plants grew hither and yon, popping up between the irises, growing alongside the coneflowers, squeezing in the corner behind the bluebells. One morning Don glanced out the kitchen window and said, “Something is eating your milkweeds.” “What?” I asked, sprinting to his side. Covering nearly every inch of several plants were fuzzy yellow, black, and white caterpillars with bristly, spiky hair. Still in my pajamas, I raced outside. Three milkweed stalks had been stripped bare by the voracious caterpillars. I had no idea what they were, but I knew that they were not monarchs-in-the-making. I cut the stalks and carried them, along with the still-chewing caterpillars, away from the garden.
Later that afternoon, I researched the undesirables to see if I needed to take further action against them. Immediately, I regretted my rush to judgment. They were hungry but harmless, caterpillars of tussock moths who are natives just as monarchs are. They may not be as popular as monarchs, but they have their place.--Judyann Grant


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