If You Want The Butterflies…

By Cynthia Sax on May 16, 2025

This massive caterpillar munched his way through half of a taller-than-me mini tomato plant. I hope to see more Laurel Sphinx moths this year due to our hosting of him.

(smiles)

One of the things I often say to fellow gardeners is “If you want the butterflies, you have to feed the caterpillars.”

Caterpillars nibble on the leaves of our plants. They make the roses in our front yard, for example, look a bit ragged. They don’t kill the rose plants (the birds and yellowjackets ensure their population doesn’t become large enough to do that) but the plants aren’t the prettiest.

And the Dear Wonderful Hubby and I are okay with that.

Because we love butterflies. And hosting caterpillars is the best way to ensure we have butterflies.

This is true of many things in life. To achieve a wonderful result, we have to deal with the ugly, the hard, the strenuous.

To have a published book, we need to write every single word. To have friends, we have to interact with people. Often. To be have a trash-free neighborhood, we have to pick up the trash.

Dream of the world you want.

Then do that hard work, the ugly work to make that dream a reality.

You can do this!

Topics: Cyn-Sights, Gardening | Comments Off on If You Want The Butterflies…