Maidstone Native Heritage Gardens

07/19/2026

Good advice

Before you reach for anything to eliminate a caterpillar from your garden, take ten seconds to actually look at what you're looking at.

This chart makes the case visually better than any description can. Every one of those caterpillars, some of which look alarming, spiky, large, or just unfamiliar enough to seem like a problem, becomes one of the butterflies or moths shown on the right. The transformation between caterpillar and adult is so complete that without a reference like this, most people would never connect the two.

The monarch caterpillar is the most widely recognized, with its distinctive yellow, black, and white banding on milkw**d. But the black swallowtail caterpillar on your dill or parsley, the eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillar on your cherry or tulip poplar, the mourning cloak caterpillar on your willows or elms: these are all future butterflies that gardeners eliminate regularly without realizing what they're removing from their local ecosystem.

The moth caterpillars on this list deserve particular attention because moths are dramatically underappreciated as a group. The luna moth is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful insects in North America, and its large green caterpillar feeding on walnut, sweet gum, or birch is the only way that adult comes to exist. The cecropia moth is the largest moth in North America with a wingspan that can reach six inches, and it's becoming genuinely less common. Finding a cecropia caterpillar in your garden is a legitimate ecological event worth protecting.

The tomato hornworm entry at the bottom is worth addressing directly because it's the one most likely to generate a strong removal instinct. The tomato hornworm is a significant pest on tomatoes and peppers, and if you have a large infestation, managing it makes sense. But the adult form is the five-spotted hawkmoth, a nocturnal pollinator of flowers with deep tubular corollas that few other insects can access. And as we've noted before, a hornworm carrying white parasitic wasp cocoons on its back should be left completely alone. Those cocoons are the next generation of parasitic wasps that will manage caterpillar populations throughout your garden far more effectively than anything you could apply.

The red admiral caterpillar, which feeds on nettles, is particularly interesting because it means a patch of stinging nettles in an out-of-the-way corner of your property is not just a nuisance to be eliminated. It's potential red admiral habitat. The red admiral is one of the more widely traveled butterfly species in North America and one of the more visually striking, with its bold orange-red bands on black wings.

The practical approach this chart is advocating is not passive acceptance of all caterpillar damage. It's identification before action. A caterpillar on a plant you care about protecting deserves thirty seconds of identification before any decision is made. If it's a pest species causing genuine damage, address it. If it's a future luna moth or monarch, relocate it to an appropriate host plant or simply leave it to complete its cycle.

Protect your plants. But look closely first. Future wings may be at stake. 🦋

07/15/2026

07/15/2026

🤎🤎🤎

07/14/2026

Meet Northern Catalpa! Aka Catalpa speciosa

Helpful Planting Tips:
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Planting Location: Northern Catalpa grows best in full sun and prefers moist, well-drained soil, though it tolerates a wide range of soil conditions, including clay and urban environments. Because it can reach 50–70 feet (15–21 m) tall with a broad canopy, it should be planted in large yards, parks, or open landscapes away from buildings, sidewalks, and overhead utility lines.

07/11/2026

You saw a big orange-and-black butterfly drift through the garden and called it a monarch. Maybe. But there's a near-perfect copy flying the same gardens this month, and one line on its wing gives it away.

Meet the viceroy — the monarch's most famous look-alike.

From a few feet away they're almost identical: the same burnt-orange wings, the same black veins, the same white-dotted black borders. For generations this fooled people, and it fools predators too, which is the whole point — looking like a monarch is a survival strategy.

But you can tell them apart in one second, once you know where to look. Find the hindwing — the lower wing — and look for a black line that arcs across it, cutting straight through the orange veins. The viceroy has that line. The monarch does not. One extra black stripe across the lower wing, and the ID is done.

A couple of other tells back it up. The viceroy is noticeably smaller, with a quicker, more flapping flight, while the monarch sails on long glides. And the monarch lays eggs only on milkw**d; the viceroy's caterpillars grow up on willow and poplar leaves instead.

Why does it matter which is which? Because they tell you two different stories about your yard. Monarchs mean your milkw**d is doing its job. Viceroys mean your willows and wet edges are. Both are native, both worth having, and both caught in the same long decline thinning butterflies everywhere — so the more host plants you leave standing, the more of each you'll see.

So next time the orange butterfly passes, check the lower wing.

One black line across the hindwing. That's the whole test.

07/11/2026

06/30/2026

Have a great Canada Day

06/24/2026

Beautiful Bee Balm this year.

06/19/2026

Butterfly w**d is stunning this year. It is part of the Milkw**d family and host plant for the Monarch butterflies