My Aunt Betty, who lives in an “inner city” apartment, recently moved to the first floor. I put in about six butterfly plants for her mini-garden outside her patio in hopes of attracting some butterflies. If you look at the picture on the left, you will see an emaciated and pathetic looking kale plant. My kale plant is on the right. Note how vigorous and strong it appears to be.

Which kale plant would you rather have?

The answer is the one on the left – the beaten up one with the nasty looking stalks.
Here’s why -

Betty’s kale actually attracted hordes of cabbage white butterflies laying eggs on it. I came by one week and found at least thirty larva on her one plant. It was amazing. I have never seen so many larva in one spot. Many of them were rather large and fairly close to transforming into a chrysalis. They devoured this plant and as a result, Betty will have many cabbage whites in her neighborhood next year.

While I have always had a few cabbage whites on my kale, I have NEVER had any plant with so many larva.

The lesson learned is that you never know where butterflies will show up and how YOU may be affecting their population with your small butterfly garden.

In this case a bad looking plant indicates a healthy population of butterflies next year.

Note - Betty has also had monarch caterpillars on her tropical milkweed when she lived in her second story apartment.