A Welcoming Spot

Today was a big day for signage.  We had multiple families contribute to both the large "Welcome to the Garden" sign and also the small individual plants.  We set up a table with some of the caterpillar creatures for students to look at during the barbeque.  The garden looked lovely and we even had a bunch of monarchs visit throughout the afternoon.   Fen Fen, our black swallowtail, was working on its chrysalis which was very exciting for the grade 1's to see today.  Jack and Jack, the grade 1 monarchs, never made it out of their chrysalides but they are in great care by a grade 1 family and we're hoping to get some pictures posted when they do eclose!

The cycle continues...

Today little Matthew, the grade 4 learning garden caterpillar, became a butterfly and was released to the garden.  It was still in the garden at the end of the day and waited until a crowd of people had gathered around to finally fly away.  I wish someone (including me) had thought to snap a photo but it was just so magical that we were all transfixed.  This is the first butterfly that came entirely from the learning garden - our students found the eggs on our milkweed plant.

Speaking of eggs, I think I found a few on the new pussytoes and definitely on the milkweed.  The cycle continues!

We have some new signage that we will be unveiling for the final day of school.  Thanks, team!

Garden visitor during garden meeting

 The lovely and talented garden crew was meeting today to discuss signage, watering, and other important garden topics when we were greeted with a special visitor - a female monarch, coming to sip verbena nectar.  I checked some of the milkweed plants after school and we do have a new set of eggs!  My first instinct was to pluck the eggs off so we could raise them in a classroom. Then I remembered we only have 2 more days of school.  Going forward, it will be more fun to leave the eggs/caterpillars on the plants.

I love this picture that Susie snapped because it has our bike gear in the background.  Butterflies and bikes - a great morning combination.

Butterflies in the garden

Today was a great day for butterflies in the garden.  We had to add 3 more pussytoes to the garden since the caterpillars wiped out the existing plants in their quest to grow big and strong.  It was fun to see them find the new plants and move over.  I think, after more research, that they are American Lady caterpillars.  I believe that some of them crawled away to make their chrysalides - I read that they don't make them on the host plant.  We will have to peruse the garden and see if we can find a few, although they may have even left the garden. They crawl quickly!  I wouldn't be surprised if they are all gone by tomorrow. I am glad we got a good look today.

We had 3 of our classroom monarch chrysalides eclose today - 2 in grade 2, 1 in kindergarten.  Both classes came out to the learning garden to release the butterflies before the end of the day.  Two took to the skies immediately, and one hung out on the anise hyssop for a bit (giving us a nice close look) before flying away.  The kindergartners in particular loved looking at the garden caterpillars after the release.

Boy or a girl?

We have 2 new monarchs in grade 2 today.  These are pictures from my garden last year of a male (top) and a female (bottom).  The male has 2 spots in the hind wings and thinner veins.   This link has a very detailed description.  I am including this information so it's easy for me to pull it up in the classroom when we look at our new friends!

Caterpillars and chrysalides

The first two photos are from my dining room, Sunday night.  The top one is the Grade 2 chrysalides, reading to eclose sometime soon.  You can see a scrunched up butterfly in each.  So beautiful! 

Grade 2 chrysalides, Sunday night

The second photo is our swallowtail caterpillar, Fen Fen.  I decided to bring it inside since it's in its final instar and will be crawling off soon to make its chrysalis.  I've never raised a swallowtail before but I read that it doesn't make its chrysalis on the plant it's on and is often hard to find once it does, so I decided to keep it contained so we could all enjoy this next stage.  The pictures below are a flashback of the past week so you can see what a remarkable process caterpillar development is for this species - after each molt, the caterpillar looks completely different.  The stage between molts is called an instar.  I think the pictures are showing Fen Fen in its 3rd, 4th, and 5th instars in the pictures.  

Fen Fen, the swallowtail, in a bed of fennel, Queen Anne's lace, and parsley

Jackson asked a question about caterpillar/butterfly brains and it led me to do a bit more research about the metamorphosis and what's going on inside that chrysalis.  Here are a few cool links:

Journey North: Monarch Anatomy

How Stuff Works: About metamorphosis

In general, I can't say enough wonderful things about the Journey North website.

Just last Tuesday (June 19) - 3rd instar?

Wednesday (June 20) - 4th instar?

Friday (June 22) - 5th instar?

I see stripes!

The grade 2 monarchs (in chrysalis stage) are sitting in our dining room this weekend.  (I didn't want them to eclose - fancy word for emerging from chrysalis - in an empty classroom this weekend.)  Today I noticed little bits of monarch coloration peeking through. The chrysalis when it formed last week was bright green - can you see the black stripes and dull orange on the one on the left?

Hooray for rain!

After a few weeks of hand watering our new plants, we finally got a nice soaking rain tonight.  Thanks to Jodi, we had a rain barrel to capture it so we can use tonight's water in the garden for awhile.  This is the first real rain we've had since we put in all the new dirt so it will be interesting to see how things settled down. I am also a bit nervous about Fen Fen (the name that we gave the swallowtail caterpillar today) and how it did during the storm.  That fennel plant looks so wispy; it's certainly not what I would choose to hang out on during a rainstorm.

Speaking of Fen Fen, I think it's a Black Swallowtail caterpillar.  This is a cool website with some pictures of the different stages of development.  In caterpillar development, each stage between molting is called an instar.  What's cool about swallowtails is that in the different instars, the caterpillar looks different.  A monarch has the same coloration but gets bigger and fatter.  I think based on this picture that Fen Fen is in its 3rd instar.

Crazy for Caterpillars

We are a bit crazy about caterpillars right now.  The painted ladies (first picture) have all moved to their new pussytoe plants and are happily munching.  The swallowtail (3rd picture) is starting to change color and is already noticeably bigger.  10 kids helped plant and water and look for bugs nutrition break today, and we had another good-sized group after school.  

Old friends, new friends

We made a new friend today.  I bought some fennel to attrack swallowtail caterpillars (since something has been eating all the dill that was supposed to do the same thing) and it came with a swallowtail caterpillar, already attached.  It was planted in the garden today along with 3 more pussytoes plants since the painted lady caterpillars have decimated the first plant.  The string of kids in the pictures are caterpillar watching, planting, and watering.  I love the afterschool crew!

Learning Garden caterpillar update

 I noticed today that the monarch caterpillars today were gone, and I assumed they had been eaten.  I discovered talking with the students out by the garden today, however, that some students were so excited about them last Friday that they took them off the milkweed, and then put them elsewhere in the garden.  Since there is no trace of them, I am sure they didn't make it back to the plant and died.  I am discovering that a learning garden is about learning all kinds of lessons, like how to be carefully observe creatures, and how to teach students to be enthusiastic and involved and responsible.   Anyone who has any thoughts/ideas about how to reinforce this, please let me (Nikki) know.   I am thinking signs, and maybe student "docents".

There still are caterpillars in the garden, though, on a different plant.  Today we got our first glimpse of some of the caterpillars on the pussytoes.  I think they are painted ladies although I am not 100% sure.

Classroom learning garden monarch caterpillar update - Jack and Jack in grade 1 are enormous (they have grown 4 cm since we took them into the classroom), and Matthew in grade 4 made its chrysalis today.  The 3 other caterpillars that are in grade 2/K are also in chrysalis stage, so my morning routine (running from classroom to classroom with milkweed) has gotten a lot easier.  Hopefully next week we will have some beautiful end-of-year butterlies!

Digging it

 What a glorious afternoon we had!  The weather was spectacular - not too hot, nice breeze.  We had a dedicated team of parents and, during nutrition break, a fantastic posse of eager students who scooped dirt with shovels, buckets and baskets to get it into our new garden.  We had a lovely group of kindies who came out to the garden to release their painted ladies (and a few butterflies stuck around for the whole afternoon on our heliotrope).  We got all our plants in - some that had already been in the garden, and many new plants.  We were still planting at dismissal so many students were able to plant and water with us.

Our milkweed has 2 caterpillars on it and both survived the transplant.  In fact, when I stopped by the garden this evening to snap a shot for the blog, I found it after it had just molted.  Caterpillars are so amazing!

Thanks to all who helped today, both digging and lending supplies.  Thank you also to Wildwood Tree Services, a local company who donated the delivery of our soil, and Bulow Garden Centre, who donated some plants and gave us a great discount on the rest for our first bed.

As we have mentioned, this is just the first bed in a much larger garden plan.  This bed will be our butterfly garden, which has host and nectar plants for butterflies.  We hope you and the butterflies enjoy it!

Monarch rearing information

 We have 3 learning garden caterpillars in classrooms right now and more were found by these great grade 4 bug hunters today.  For those interested in rearing monarchs, here's a great guide to how to do it, from egg to butterfly.

http://www.monarchwatch.org/rear/index.htm