This is my first year planting milkweed, so I can't speak for previous years. I raised 9 cats (lost two) and just found some new eggs and cats. There has consistently been a monarch in the garden about all summer

For me it has been slow as far as seeing actual butterflies, but I've found plenty of Monarch eggs to raise.

Martha

I've raised about 15 cats this season, with the most consistent Monarchs being in recent weeks.

John

This is my first year to plant milkweed to try and attract monarchs. I had three monarch chrysalis(s) that hatched. There could have been more, I didn't realize what I was looking at at first. I've had daily monarch sightings since June/July. Ive seen as many as three out there at a time. I've seen two sets of "coupled" monarchs flying around in the last five days. This is more than I've seen flying around naturally in the last twenty years. My milkweed is infested with some little white things on top of the leaves. I may not get more caterpillars.

It has been fun. My kids and husband love it. The neighbors have noticed the butterflies and hummingbirds. They've even mentioned planting more plants of what I have to attract them.

This has been the best year for monarchs in 8 years. I've raised 45-55 monarchs this year.
Jacob

Molanic, that's why I got a hanging net!
I can't imagine 200...

I released 5 Monarchs in early August, which were from eggs that I found on small plants in my garden in July. But I haven't found any more eggs here since then.

Right now I have 6 cats and 6 chrysalises that were collected as eggs or larvae down at the "milkweed field" which is about 1 mile away. This field that gets hayed in late June, so the milkweed sprouts back up nice and fresh through the summer. The Monarchs love that and there are always a few hanging around down there until it gets too cold.

These numbers are fairly low, but at least I have been raising a few, which I enjoy very much. Last year was a total bust. The year before I released 233 Monarchs!

I had 5 at a time fluttering around my yard but they are dwindling. I just saw one today. I still have some caterpillars chomping on the milkweeds though.

I had a few show up this year, as opposed to seeing only 2 last year. The day I left on vacation, I witnessed a monarch laying eggs on my milkweeds. I was soooo upset, I wanted to scoop those leaves up and raise them, but couldn't. Was hoping to return to at least one caterpillar, but alas, NOTHING. I've seen signs of hatched caterpillars, but none survived; I'm assuming wasps. This makes 2 years in a row for me with no monarch butterflies reared. Sad is an understatement. Northern NJ.

Ive got 25 or so monarchs staging at my acreage now. Ive had alot of cats, but not much success getting them to chrysalis stage. (1 so far) that Ive found.

Ive found that they like my Asclepias Tuberosa and Asclepias Incarnata. While I have alot of common milkweeds, it doesnt seem lke they are inclined to use them if the other species are available.

Ive had other people in my area tell me that there isnt much activity on common milkweeds also, for some reason.

I saw what appeared to be one in my back yard yesterday, but it might have been a Viceroy. I'm not sure whether they make it to Los Angeles or not, but I used to see them in Texas.

I'll admit to being new to this portion of GardenWeb. I will assume that you folks are smarter than me. The missus says that a 2-year-old is often smarter than me!

I have had milkweed in the back yard for more than 7 years (new construction) and have not seen anything back there other than those pesky aphids.

I had aphids again this year until about 6 weeks ago and they disappeared. I just now am seeing lady bugs, so I don't know what killed the aphids.

My cat count on Sunday was 14, all in the open. I don't have a decent way to raise them, I just let nature do its thing.

Today, a couple of the cats decided that they had enough milkweed and crawled away. I saw one as it went over my six foot privacy fence (heading south). The other one accepted the temptation of the lowest cross piece of the fence and is hanging out there. That one also had to head south.

In the wild, do they all head south? Or what? If not going to the fence, then they would have to head toward the spruce tree about 25 feet to the west. Comments?

I think the caterpillars just get wanderlust when they're ready to go into the chrysalis!

This is my first year planting for butterflies, so I can't make comparisons. Last year I just had one Monarch wander through during fall migration. This year was much better, and we saw quite a few monarchs here and there in the garden, but never more than one at a time. I didn't see any eggs or babies until last week, when my husband spotted an ELF. After her departure, I counted 42 eggs, and brought in 20 to raise. There is also one giant caterpillar in the yard now, so obviously I missed a previous ELF. Frankly, I had stopped checking the milkweed because it was so heavily infested with aphids I couldn't stand to handle it. I had been hosing it off for quite some time, but I had surgery and couldn't do it and then it was too late.

Anyway, I am hoping that this year is better on the East Coast in general. I've been too laid up postop to be able to go to the park and check out the butterfly fields there. Last year was terrible, as most of you know. I learned that 90% of the monarchs overwintering in Mexico come from the Midwest, though. So we do our bit, but you folks in Texas, Oklahoma, and the Great Plains really carry the weight. So I hope you all are doing well.
Liz

I'm always amazed people find the chrysalids. I have yet to ever find one make it to that stage on their own in my yard. I have found cats... although they were almost always just 1st or 2nd instar. I have raised hundreds from eggs over the years but it is not like I am out there snatching up all the eggs before they hatch. There are plenty of eggs left to nature. Maybe I just have too many predators or something here.

Now I have my last two cats left to pupate inside, and a bunch of chrysalids in the hamper waiting to do their thing. There has been lots of monarch activity outside the past few days. Most days I can see up to six at a time, even when I haven't released any I raised for a couple of days.

The other day I saw a pile of monarchs rolling around in the grass and went over to investigate. It was two that were locked together mating, and a third one that wanted in on the action and was clamped onto the head of one of the mating ones. I very carefully pulled the intruder off and the mating pair flew away. Then I let the other one go and it flew off too. I have never seen that before, it seems that behavior would make them quite vulnerable to predators which I why I separated them.

LOTS around here !!! I released a dozen a day for the past week and I just found 29 more eggs yesterday. It is a great year for Monarch in the South !!!! So happy since it was a complete bust last year :)

It's been a constant flow in Miami. They're always fluttering around, but it picked up in June. I'm not counting this year but last year we had close to, if not over, 300 releases. It was so hard to do without the proper setup. This year, I wait until they're almost ready to J and relocate them to the pop-ups on potted milkweed I have in the cages. They have really been loving the giant milkweed I bought in June, more than the usual varieties we have for them. It hasn't had a chance to go to seed and it's just now starting to regrow where they ate it all up over the last two months. I'm thinking of heading back to the nursery to pick up two more giant plants just because they like it so much.

Not seeing any here yet, but I've got hope for later! I usually see them in the fall. Meanwhile I've been seeing a lot of butterflies over the past days. The cloudless sulphurs have returned and I'm seeing them almost daily, and it looks like the Gulf frits are starting to show up. There are also various swallowtails, including a couple of Giants. And I'm loving it!

Just imagine if I actually had a butterfly garden currently. :)

We are in northern MA, have seen exactly ONE monarch this year! This was the first year in about 15 years I decided to leave any babies on our milkweed and not raise them. The number of babies we found has been going downhill for about 6 years. We went from raising around 25 per year to 10 to 3 last year...not very encouraging. I didn't even see any Monarchs on my huge butterfly bush this year. :0(

8 years ago or so it seemed the migration route was right over our house, we saw what had to be thousands over a 2-3 day period it was seriously magical!

We still have a few Monarchs floating around and doting on Asters, White Snakeroot and Tithonias.
Oddly enough, I even have five cats, two in 4th instar, and three more in 3rd. Hope my Milkweed-and my nectar-hold out :/