While walking between home and the local diner this evening, I picked up a Monarch caterpillar.  Or perhaps it was he who picked me up.  In any case, it wasn’t until I was seated in the booth, carefully laying my napkin in my lap, that I discovered the hitchhiker.  After a shriek that startled my son, I gently used the napkin to pick up the caterpillar, and politely asked the waitress for a small to-go box.  And over the next hour—safely enclosed in a Styrofoam cell and about as long as a French fry—the caterpillar busily tried to poke his way out of the small opening left by the tab that locks the top to the bottom of the box.

Do caterpillars sense a change of venue or notice the smell of the grill or the thump of too-loud music? I imagined him quickly forming his chrysalis right then and there, just to escape the din.  But judging from its size, this caterpillar has a few days yet to feed voraciously on a host plant in preparation for its magical transformation.

Once home in my garden, with my flashlight-wielding son, I gently lifted the caterpillar onto the leaves of a sturdy milkweed plant, to take up temporary residence with two others already gorging themselves.  The newcomer immediately seemed content to nestle on a leaf, and in the morning I hope to see all three having a milkweed breakfast.

This particular milkweed, Asclepias physocarpus ‘Oscar,’ is a hearty, upright plant that has grown to over 5’ tall.  I covered my plant over the weekend with tree netting, to keep the mockingbirds from snatching the juicy caterpillar morsels (which to my despair happened last week to three others).  Come by the Garden’s “Pottering Around” container display border, and you’ll see ‘Oscar’ flowering with other butterfly-attracting plants.  Also known as “swan plant,” it has narrow, pointed foliage and creamy white blooms in late summer, and then forms balloon-like pale green pods with spiky hairs.

I’m grateful to our volunteer Julie Abbott, who talked me into purchasing ‘Oscar’ during the Garden’s spring plant sale.  “Butterflies love it,” she said, and judging from the number of Monarch eggs and caterpillars my two plants have yielded so far, Julie was right.

Will my dinner guest thrive on a steady diet of ‘Oscar’? Will I succeed this time in nurturing the caterpillars to the chrysalis stage?  Will they emerge as Monarchs in time to wing their way to Mexico for a winter vacation?  Will I succumb to another round of volunteer recommendations at this week’s Fall Plant Sale (beginning Thursday and continuing through Saturday)?  I hope so! 

Randee Humphrey is education manager at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

Thanks for the story of the monarch. We have raised painted lady butterfies here at home as part of a science project for my son. However, I would like to attract more butterflies to our garden naturally. Thanks for the insight on ‘Oscar’!

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