transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] As gardeners, we all know that having pollinators in our gardens is important, but do we truly understand the role that the random butterfly or bee plays? Today, I am visiting Disney World and specifically the International Flower and Garden Festival here at Epcot, and I get to chat with entomologist Morgan Bell at Butterfly Landing. She is a Conservations Program Manager with Disney Conservation, where she leads terrestrial research with a specialty in pollinating insects. As she walks me through this gorgeous array of pollinator-attracting plants, she shares more about how butterflies, bees and even wasps play a role in our vegetable gardens. Join me as we both learn how we can attract and care for these fascinating players in our garden's ecosystem and beyond. And a special note for our audio listeners, I love listening to audio podcasts, but you may want to tune in to the YouTube version or watch the video on Spotify because Morgan is showing us all about the flowers and the nectar and the host plants at Butterfly Landing. Plus, we get to see several of the butterflies there. Whether you listen to this podcast or watch the video version on YouTube or Spotify, I know you're going to love it. Before we dive in, this episode is sponsored by Cross Country Nurseries. And if you love growing unique varieties in your garden, this one is definitely one for you to check out. They're an organic, sustainable nursery based in New Jersey, and they specialize in plant diversity, especially peppers. In fact, they offer the world's largest selection of sweet and hot pepper plants from classic Bells to some really fun, hard to find varieties. They also grow tomatoes, eggplants, herbs, and more, all organically grown and ready to thrive. They ship nationwide each spring, timed for your growing zone, so they arrive when you are ready to plant. If you want to try something new this season, be sure to check them out. I've got the link for you in the show notes. Hi, Morgan. It's so great to meet you. I've actually never been to Disney before. This is my very first time, but I always thought it was this major amusement park, which of course it is, but I had no idea that there was so much going on with conservation and monarchs and all of this. So you've got the ear of so many gardeners right now, and they're very curious about bugs, good and bad. What is one thing that you would want gardeners to know about bugs if you knew that you were talking to a gardener that isn't quite sure what to do about them?

Speaker 2:
[02:34] I think the biggest thing that I would love them to know is that their garden is not separate from nature. It is nature, right? And the things that they do in their garden have a huge impact to nature and the wildlife that visit their garden that extends well beyond the confines of their garden or their fence line. And there's some really, really cool research actually that looks at the impacts that gardeners make on their habitats and on their gardens. And they find that specifically to be communities, the things that gardeners do have the biggest impact over environmental policy, over connections to green space. And so the things that they do make a huge difference. And so at an environmental, at an individual level, gardening is conservation. And so the work that gardeners do have a huge impact beyond just the food that they're making for themselves.

Speaker 1:
[03:28] Okay, so let's talk about pollinators in general, because that's something, I mean, I think gardeners do care about the wide environment, but they also want to make sure their cucumbers are pollinated. So we all think about bees. You mentioned bees, we'll talk about bees, but what other pollinators are there that really matter for vegetable gardens?

Speaker 2:
[03:48] There's so many. So if we talk about pollinators, most of the time people think about insect pollinators. First off, there's a ton of other pollinators that aren't even bugs. But if we're talking about insect pollinators, you know, butterflies come up a lot. Bees are really the ones that kind of win that title for the most effective pollinators. And without them, you know, most of the fruits and vegetables we really like to grow and eat wouldn't exist. There's a really popular stat that about one in every three bites of food comes from a pollinator. So if you look at your dinner plate and you look at what's on there, if you were to subtract everything that was in thanks to a bee specifically, your plate would be pretty boring. It wouldn't be very fun. It wouldn't be very colorful. What was there probably wouldn't be as flavorful. It wouldn't be as big and as juicy and as wonderful. So we really have bees specifically to thank for all of, you know, what comes into our gardens. And I like to think of them more as like partners in a garden than visitors. So they're really essential to what happens in the garden.

Speaker 1:
[04:42] You're passionate about butterflies. I definitely want to get back to bees because gardeners love our bees. But with butterflies, what kind of pollination impact do they bring to the table?

Speaker 2:
[04:52] Yeah, definitely not as much as bees when it comes to the actual like efficiency. Bees are super fluffy and hairy. They're designed to pick up a bunch of pollen and move it places. Butterflies a little less so, but they're still really important. You can also think about like they visit different types of flowers and go to different spaces. Sometimes they pollinate things that bees just can't or aren't interested in. But they're also really good ecosystem indicators. In a lot of times, you think about caterpillars, a lot of gardeners are sometimes can tend to think of caterpillars as the things that are eating up their plants. But they're also really, really important to that garden as well. Things that caterpillars do, they provide a great food source for other bigger things in the food web, birds specifically. Birds eat a lot of other insects, especially other types of insects that are often considered pests. The more caterpillars you have, the more birds you're going to have, which means more better health for your garden overall. So they're kind of a good ecosystem indicator. If you look at how many butterflies you have, the types of butterflies you have, what kind of caterpillars you have, it's a good idea of kind of the health of your garden overall.

Speaker 1:
[05:51] Okay, so what I'm hearing you say, this is exciting, because I'm sitting here in this butterfly pavilion, and I'm watching the butterflies, and in my garden when I see butterflies, I'm all excited about it. So what you're telling me is the more butterflies that we have, the more caterpillars there's going to be, which is going to be food for something like birds, which also eat bad pests. I know there's not bad insects, it's all part of the web, I get that, gardeners do too, but I also don't want my tomatoes being eaten by worms. So the birds are good because they're going to pick off some of the bad worms and pests. So if we want to attract butterflies, I mean obviously for the beauty and for it's beautiful with children to love and learn about the butterflies, there's ways that we can create a habitat in our garden to do that. And it doesn't have to be, oh my gosh, this is incredible. We're going to walk around a little bit, but explain to me, maybe as we walk a little bit, you have to have host plants and nectar plants. And I think we think about flowers when we think about attracting butterflies, because we always see the butterflies on the flowers. But that's not all we need, right? We need host plants too. So for those who don't have any idea what that is, maybe tell me what it is. And then if there are any, you can point out to us.

Speaker 2:
[07:01] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[07:01] That would be awesome.

Speaker 2:
[07:02] Yeah. So host plants and nectar plants are kind of the two main things our pollinators need, especially our butterflies. Host plants are, you can kind of think of the nursery and the house. That's where they're going to lay their eggs and where the larvae, the caterpillars are going to be raised up and what they're going to eat. A lot of times there's a very specific match there. So one or a few species of butterflies are going to be linked up with a few or one species of host plant, right? We can think of monarch and milkweed as the very classic case. But then the other example is nectar plants, right? And that is kind of the broader food source. So that is going to be for all of the adult butterflies and adult pollinators that are visiting around. They need a wide variety of things and they're going to be drinking either the nectar so that sugary substance that's in the middle of the flower or eating some of that pollen or taking some of that pollen as well. So both are two sides at the same point, pieces of the puzzle and you need both of them for a really great garden. So you think about what you want in your garden and you kind of tailor what plants you put in there, what host plants you put in there to see the pollinators that you want to see in your garden.

Speaker 1:
[08:03] So if I think about what I learned as a kid where the basic needs for human is food, clothing and shelter, the host plants would be the shelter and the flowers would be the food.

Speaker 2:
[08:12] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the two most basic pieces you need in your garden and then you can kind of scale up or down from there depending on how crazy you want to get with your habitat.

Speaker 1:
[08:21] Can you show me examples of what you've got here of what would be host plants, would be nectar plants and do you have any that are both?

Speaker 2:
[08:28] Yeah, absolutely. So this one right here actually is Blanket Flower. That is a super tried and true pollinator flower. Butterflies specifically love it because it's a big landing pad. So it's a nice kind of space for them to land on.

Speaker 1:
[08:42] So those are the unopened blooms. That's Blanket Flower down there.

Speaker 2:
[08:45] Exactly, right there.

Speaker 1:
[08:46] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[08:46] And they love that one. And that one's really nice too because the nectar is really accessible. You can kind of see it right there in the middle. A lot of times more ornamental flowers have kind of double flowers. The nectar in the pollen is really hard to reach. Something like that is a perfect flower for a butterfly. Let's see what else we have there.

Speaker 1:
[09:03] Well, while you're here, I see zinnias right here. And a lot of times the zinnias are double. Right. Are those good for butterflies? Are they less?

Speaker 2:
[09:12] Less good, but it depends. If you can look at the flower and you can see the pollen on it, that's great. That's awesome. As long as it's accessible enough for the pollinator to reach, something will make use of it. You can kind of look at the shape of the flower and think what might match up with the shape of the pollinator that's going to be accessible to this. A lot of times more tubular flowers, things with long tongues like them, so butterflies that can reach all the way in there. You'll see bumblebees crawl all the way inside, things like that. They also have favorite colors. Butterflies really love purples and reds. Bees tend to like the yellows and the blues.

Speaker 1:
[09:43] Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:
[09:44] You get really specific in terms of what you want to see in your garden and what you plant for that.

Speaker 1:
[09:48] Okay. Show me more.

Speaker 2:
[09:49] Yeah, okay. This is native milkweed. We also call it butterflyweed. And that one, if you want monarchs, you've got to have your milkweed. It is the only plant that monarchs will lay their eggs on.

Speaker 1:
[10:02] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[10:02] So it's absolutely like imperative that you have this one.

Speaker 1:
[10:04] So the milkweed is the host plant, not the nectar plant.

Speaker 2:
[10:06] It is. Yep, it's the host plant. But the adults will also use it for nectar.

Speaker 1:
[10:09] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[10:09] So anything, you know, it's kind of like a kid's menu and an adult menu. The kids are really specific, right? Sometimes kids only want mac and cheese or chicken nuggets. Or if in your, my case, you're still an adult and you only want mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. But a lot of times they have a more kind of specific diet. They only want a few things. The adults or adult butterflies or adult bees will feed on a lot more things, which is why it's really important to also have diversity in your garden. So you don't want just one plant that's blooming for a few months out of the year and it's only one plant. You want something that is going to be blooming over a larger time period. You want a bunch of different blooms that there's always food available to pollinators that are coming and visiting, and a bunch of different shapes and sizes and colors. You've always got something for whatever shows up.

Speaker 1:
[10:49] Awesome.

Speaker 2:
[10:50] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[10:51] What else do we see? So that was a host plant for the butterflies. What other host plants for other types of butterflies do you see?

Speaker 2:
[11:00] A very common one. I don't see any in here right now, but herbs are really popular among swallowtails.

Speaker 1:
[11:06] Oh, dill.

Speaker 2:
[11:07] Yep, dill is a big one.

Speaker 1:
[11:08] Gardener's panic over that.

Speaker 2:
[11:09] Anything in the carrot family, things like that, are big fans to all of the swallowtails, and those are gorgeous butterflies. They're big, they're beautiful. A lot of times, they're like black and yellow stripes. I absolutely love those butterflies, so.

Speaker 1:
[11:21] So what would you say to a gardener, because this happens to me every year, they post a picture and they're like, this caterpillar is eating my dill, it's eating my carrots, and I just say leave it, because most of the time, it's not gonna kill it, it just cuts it back a lot, but tell me the benefits of why they should leave it.

Speaker 2:
[11:39] Yeah, so I mean, a lot of times, in that same case, where people are like, oh, it's eating the thing that I want to be growing, I need to move it, or I need to get rid of it. But a lot of times, that caterpillar is pulling double duty, right? That caterpillar means that there are other things in your garden that probably pollinated that specific plant. So it's important to make sure that you're letting that full life cycle happen, so that you can keep the pollinators around it in your garden to make sure that your plants are getting pollinated, because that's gonna produce better fruits and vegetables for you. You're gonna get healthier fruit, bigger fruit, more flavorful fruit and vegetables. So if that caterpillar is not there, that life cycle is not continuing. So you want to make sure they stay for that reason. A lot of times you can plant an additional plant, move them over to the one that you're okay with them eating up, and keeping your nice pretty ones at the front of your garden and things like that. Okay.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[13:52] Honestly, anything in here is amazing. If it's got an accessible flower, then it's going to be providing a resource to something. I always recommend that depending on where you are, check with your native nursery and see what works really well for your area, try to find a native plant to your area because then that means it's going to be matched up with a pollinator in your area. They're not going to have to figure out how to work together. They're already going to know. I always recommend that people check with their native nursery, see what grows well in your area. A lot of times, zinnias are a great option. Anything in the aster family, so all of the sunflowers and things like that are usually very popular amongst bees and butterflies, both. So those are some really good things.

Speaker 1:
[14:34] So you mentioned natives and I know that whole native plants, I think garnered a lot of discussion a few years ago with the whole point that non-natives aren't as great to host butterflies. Is that something that you would want to make sure gardeners are aware of?

Speaker 2:
[14:49] Yeah. I think the big thing there is just that native plants are going to be better for two big reasons. One, native plants are from that area, so they work best in that climate, they work best in that environment with that soil. All of those things, you're going to have less trouble raising up those plants and they're going to be a lot hardier in that space. Then also, there's that match with the pollinators in that area. It's not to say that ornamental plants or non-native plants are not also amazing to the environment and not also useful, but they potentially might not work as well as if you plant something that's native.

Speaker 1:
[15:23] Right. That makes a lot of sense. Let's move on to bees just because you mentioned bees and how, I think, gardeners feel like bees are the thing, but there's also the knowledge that the populations are declining. Is that something home gardeners really need to be worried about?

Speaker 2:
[15:39] Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's not something that we need to be scared over, but I think it's something we should be aware of. A lot of times, the save the bees conversation happens about honey bees. That's kind of the first bee that we think of, but really, that conversation should be centered on native bees. There's about 4,000 different species of bees here in North America, about 20,000 in the whole world, so there's a lot of species of bees, and most of them are declining. And they're absolutely imperative when it comes to our food systems, whether that be in our home gardens or on a larger scale. And they're really, really central to that whole kind of ecosystem web, so without them, everything kind of starts to crumble. So it's really important that we do what we can, you know, both in our home spaces, in our backyards, and at a bigger level to protect them. So yeah, it is something that we should be thinking about when it comes to what choices are we personally making that can help support the bees.

Speaker 1:
[16:35] I want to know what those choices in your perspective, because are you officially an entomologist?

Speaker 2:
[16:40] Yeah, I am.

Speaker 1:
[16:41] Okay, so that's the fancy word that means that you study bugs. What is it that we can do to attract the bees? And then my second question is what can we do to make sure we don't harm them? And that would probably apply to pollinators in general, but what are some things, what a home gardener will say is, I want my cucumbers or I want my squash pollinated, how do I make sure that the bees find my neighbor or my house out of the neighborhood?

Speaker 2:
[17:07] Yeah, so the nice part is that, like you mentioned, what you're doing for bees largely supports pollinators as a whole. So it's not like you have to think about what do I need to do for the moths and the butterflies and the flies and all the other pollinators out there. Generally what you're doing for one really helps on the whole. So it's nice to think that one small change has a huge, huge impact. But some big things are largely subtractive first. So a lot of bees actually nest in the ground or old stems of plants. So if you leave some bare ground or you leave some of those stems after they've died, those are huge ways to support making space and shelter for all of the bees that need to nest. So that's a big one and it doesn't require anything. It just requires leaving things potentially a little messier, not mulching every aspect of your garden for a little while. So those are some big ones. Using less pesticides or no pesticides where you can is a huge one that has a big impact on all our pollinators.

Speaker 1:
[18:00] Even organic?

Speaker 2:
[18:01] Even organic. Organic is amazing and is significantly better than traditional pesticides. So if you're using any pesticides, the best thing to do is to spray at dawn or dusk when things are not flying, so not the middle of the day when you see that most of the pollinators are flying around, and then try not to spray directly on open blooms because that's where the pollinators are landing. So if you're going to use it, just think about when you can use it and where you can use it, so it's still best protecting the pollinators. If you want to add some things into your garden, plants are always the best thing. The more blooming flowers, the better things are going to be. It always comes down to habitat. The more habitat you can put in, the better. Oftentimes when I say that, people are like, oh, I need to put an acre of pollinator meadow in or something really, really big scale, but you absolutely don't have to. Just a single plant is huge for a pollinator. Bees and butterflies can visit hundreds, if not thousands of plants a day. So a single plant is really important to them.

Speaker 1:
[18:55] And you mentioned before diversity. So rather than a whole row of one variety, like different varieties are going to be better.

Speaker 2:
[19:02] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[19:03] And then bloom time over the whole season.

Speaker 2:
[19:04] Yep. So think about, you know, as diverse as you can make your garden over the longest time period. So you're thinking about how you design a plate for a pollinator. You want a bunch of different things on it that all look different. Maybe one of those things is the most attractive. And then a lot of times we kind of talk about planting in clusters for pollinators. So a lot of times a bee might be looking for that specific plant or that butterfly might be looking for that one house plant. So if it's all kind of in a nice clump, they've got a nice easy billboard to know exactly where they're going.

Speaker 1:
[19:30] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[19:31] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[19:31] Okay. I do want to ask a question just because I know you know about bugs and that is a question about wasps. Because I know that there's the parasitic wasps and they're so tiny that I probably wouldn't even recognize it with my naked eye. But there's also like I'm constantly fighting red wasps and mud daubers. Like I don't you know, but gardeners are terrified of those. But I'm sure they have a benefit, right? So so make the case for wasps and why we shouldn't fear them.

Speaker 2:
[19:57] They do play a role. So they are pollinators. They don't pollinate as much as a bee, a bee is kind of the pinnacle of a pollinator, but they still play a role. I like to call them the carnivorous cousins to bees. So they are essentially are kind of functionally very, very similar, but they will eat other insects and other things versus a bee is just a vegetarian. It's just going to eat things like that. So they still play a role. And largely what you mentioned, parasitic wasps and things like that, they can eat other pests in your garden that you might not want to be there. So they play that role in terms of keeping other things in your garden in check. They can sting, you know, they have that reputation. So I understand completely why people don't want them flying everywhere in their garden. And there's a very fair case to be made that, you know, if they're somewhere that is a problem, you absolutely can move them. They don't need to stay, you know, above your doorframe or on that pot that you are constantly going to water or something like that.

Speaker 1:
[20:49] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[20:50] But if they're in an area that is potentially, you know, you can leave them, I always want to make the case that, you know, if something is there, try and leave it where you can. And generally, if you leave them alone, they're not going to come chasing after you.

Speaker 1:
[21:01] Red wasps are the exception.

Speaker 2:
[21:03] They might be an exception. They have a bit of an attitude problem.

Speaker 1:
[21:05] They can shape-chase me before. So would you say the same with butterflies, if you see butterflies in your garden, that's a good sign for the ecosystem. Is the same true with wasps or not on as large of a scale?

Speaker 2:
[21:18] It is true. I think the best way to think about it is on an even bigger scale. So diversity as a whole. It's not just the butterflies or the bees, the wasps, but all of them together. You know, if you want to know how well your garden is doing, you can go outside, sit in your garden for a little while and look and see what's there. So not only look at, you know, are you seeing 20 honeybees or 100 butterflies, but look and see, you know, what diversity you're seeing of those species. Cause that's really what matters. You want the resilience of having a bunch of different species across all the different types of pollinators. And then I always encourage people, if you're out there and you're looking at what's visiting your garden, you might as well go and contribute to community science. There's so many amazing community science programs, but all they require is you telling them what you see on the plant in your backyard. And scientists go and use that data and answer questions on a much bigger scale. So if you're already counting what's back there and you want to contribute to science and conservation on a bigger scale, you can contribute to some community science programs.

Speaker 1:
[22:17] I was just thinking about how the dragonflies have appeared in my garden. I think those are good. They are good.

Speaker 2:
[22:23] I love dragonflies.

Speaker 1:
[22:24] Okay. But you really love monarchs. So tell me, show me what you want to show me here about what you're doing with monarchs. And specifically, I know a lot of home gardeners are very passionate about attracting monarchs. Tell me why that's so important to a home gardener.

Speaker 2:
[22:39] Yeah. And I love the monarch because it really is this iconic species when it comes to pollinators and insects as a whole. In my opinion, it's one of the only pollinators and only insects that people actually can identify to species, which is really exciting. They hold so much ecosystem value, but also cultural value for people. And so it's really important that we work to protect them. Again, going back to that same idea that what you do for a monarch is going to help more broadly across pollinators and insects in general. So they're a really nice kind of icon species for what we can do for pollinators. And here at Butterfly Landing and here at Walt Disney World, we do a lot of work with monarchs specifically. We're in a really interesting space in Florida to answer some questions about the monarch butterfly because they complete this incredible migration, one of the biggest animal migrations, up to 3,000 miles potentially, which is massive when you think about, they're potentially only a couple of inches long and they weigh half a gram. So it's a long way to go for a tiny little insect, but they're pollinating along that whole way and they're looking for milkweed specifically. So for home gardeners, having milkweed along their migration route is the absolute biggest thing that you can do to support them.

Speaker 1:
[23:46] Is that one right there?

Speaker 2:
[23:47] That's one right there, yep.

Speaker 1:
[23:48] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[23:49] There you go.

Speaker 1:
[23:49] Exciting.

Speaker 2:
[23:50] Yeah. So here we are tracking Monarch Butterflies and seeing how they use Walt Disney World space and how they're using Florida more broadly to try and understand what we can do to help them from a conservation perspective. They've been severely declining over recent years. And so we want to figure out what can we do here and what can we recommend people do to help support the Monarch Butterfly. So we're tracking them. We're seeing how they move across property. And one of the most interesting things we've found that I think applies to home gardeners is they use a lot more space than we previously thought. And they're really good at finding habitat. So there are some areas that we have milkweed that I thought, I think they're going to find this. There's nothing kind of pointing them here, but they find it and they find it quickly. So if you put habitat in your garden, they're going to find it. So really, you know, you don't have to wonder, are the Monarchs going to show up? Are the bees, the butterflies going to show up? If there is the host plant and there are the resources and there's amazing space for them, they're going to find it and they're going to make use of it.

Speaker 1:
[24:45] You said you're tracking them.

Speaker 2:
[24:46] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[24:48] I'm guessing you're not going, there's one, there's one, like you're doing something more special than that. Tell me about that.

Speaker 2:
[24:52] Yeah. So we track them in two ways. One, we give them a sticker tag. And so we call it our Disney name tag for them. It has a little unique ID number on it and it sits on their side. So if you're ever walking around Butterfly Landing, if you see one of those stickers, that's a monarch that's participating in our research. And that has been a technique that's been used since the 60s to track monarchs along their migration route. We're also using a little bit more high tech technology as well. And we call them Butterfly Backpacks. They're little radio telemetry tags that sit on the backs of the monarch butterflies. They've got little solar panels and an antenna that sticks off the back. And we can pull out a device and check in real time and see where those butterflies are moving. And that gives us really fine scale data to see where are they minute by minute moving across the habitat, which allows us to answer some questions that up until this technology was miniaturized enough to be able to use on the backs of butterflies. Recently, we could have never answered those questions before. So it's really exciting work.

Speaker 1:
[25:48] So what's the most recent thing that you've learned about them?

Speaker 2:
[25:52] You know, recently I was looking at some maps the other day of our monarchs and how they're using the space. And I was absolutely stunned to find that some of them are moving a lot further than we expected. We have resident monarchs here, which means they don't participate in the migration. They stay locally. And I think up until this point, we kind of thought, and I personally thought that they stayed a lot more local. But it turns out we've got some that are using all of Florida as a whole. And so we were really surprised that they're making and moving at a much bigger scale to find good habitat. So going back to that point, if it's there, they're going to find it.

Speaker 1:
[26:23] Okay, call this a very naive question, but maybe other beginners may think the same thing. Why care about monarchs compared to other butterflies? What makes them different and why should gardeners care about them in particular?

Speaker 2:
[26:37] I think two reasons. One, the monarch butterfly falls into a family called the brush-footed butterflies, and that's a really large family of butterflies. And so when you're helping the monarch butterfly, you're helping that family of butterflies, and they do a lot of work. They pull some really, really heavy lifting when it comes to pollination. But also, back to that point, the monarch butterfly is a really great touchstone for people, and that everyone knows the monarch butterfly. A lot of people have a connection to the monarch butterfly, whether that was learning about the life cycle in school growing up, or seeing one here at Butterfly Landing, or something like that. And so they're a really nice icon for people, but they speak to the broader pollinators. So again, something that you do for one pollinator, you're going to help all the pollinators.

Speaker 1:
[27:18] Can you show us the butterfly box before we finish up? Because I'm really curious about those.

Speaker 2:
[27:22] Yeah, absolutely. So in these boxes are a bunch of chrysalids that are hanging. So if you look, these are all different types of butterflies or moths that are about to emerge. So the life cycle is the egg is laid on the host plant, and then that egg emerges and you've got a little teeny tiny caterpillar. It goes through a bunch of different instars. So it molts every time, gets bigger and bigger, eats that host plant along the way. Then eventually when it decides, I'm big enough, I've had enough food, it goes into that chrysalid or cocoon if you're a moth. It'll hang there for a certain amount of time, and then eventually it'll split open and outcrawls your moth or your butterfly. So that's what's happening with these guys here.

Speaker 1:
[28:03] So those are living, that's not just a demonstration.

Speaker 2:
[28:05] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[28:06] And they look like they're in different stages.

Speaker 2:
[28:08] Yeah, so these are a bunch of different species actually. So most of them look like they're on the earlier side, so they'll probably be here for the next few days, if not a week plus, until they're ready to emerge. And they'll kind of wait till the timing's right. It's not a specific eight days or seven days until they're emerged. They'll wait until conditions are right for a butterfly.

Speaker 1:
[28:28] I love that. I'm at awe. You're like, this is just a regular Tuesday.

Speaker 2:
[28:32] It really is, but I love it so much. It does not get old, trust me. But yeah, once they emerge, they'll hang there for a few hours to over a day because they've kind of been squished up in that cocoon, but they need to dry their wings out. So this is one of the most fragile times for a butterfly or a moth when they're hanging there. So if you see one in your garden, they might look a little funny because their wings are essentially being blown up at that moment. So if you see them hanging like that, no need to worry. Just let them do their thing for a few hours and you can keep coming back and checking them and watch them get bigger and bigger and their wings kind of fold out. And then after a while, they'll take off.

Speaker 1:
[29:04] Interesting. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want gardeners to know?

Speaker 2:
[29:10] Gosh, I think just going back to that point of, you know, at a garden level, there's so much that people can do to help support pollinators and wildlife more broadly. So even though you're tending to your individual garden and you're thinking on your garden level, things that you do in your garden make a huge impact to wildlife as a whole and it's all very connected. So I think you can think about pollinators as partners in your garden and think about the choices that you're making and how they impact those pollinators that are going on to visit your neighbor's garden.

Speaker 1:
[29:40] Yes, I love that. Okay, for those who are going to come visit here during, especially during the Flower and Garden Festival, what are some of the highlights that you would want people to see when they're here from your perspective?

Speaker 2:
[29:51] From my perspective, if you're here visiting the Flower and Garden Festival, definitely come check out Butterfly Landing. I mean, you can see how gorgeous it is in here. On a sunny day, especially, all the butterflies are flying around. It's absolutely stunning in here. I think it's such an incredible walkthrough. If you're in here, definitely check out and see if you can see any of the butterflies that are wearing our radio tag backpacks or those sticker tags that are participating in that research. Butterfly Landing is incredible, but also the whole festival has so many beautiful flowers and other gardens that are absolutely gorgeous to walk through, and also the food is incredible. So definitely get a snack.

Speaker 1:
[30:24] Well, thanks so much for joining me. This was so much fun.

Speaker 2:
[30:27] I had a blast. This is awesome.

Speaker 1:
[30:29] I hope you enjoyed that chat with Morgan. And if you watch the video on YouTube or Spotify, you'll get to see many of these beautiful butterflies along with the host and nectar plants that support them. And if you get a chance to visit the International Flower and Garden Festival this year, it runs through June 1st, 2026 at Epcot. And you won't want to miss a stroll in Butterfly Landing. Before we wrap up, I want to remind you about today's sponsor, Cross Country Nurseries. If you've ever wished, you could grow something a little bit different, especially when it comes to peppers. They have one of the most unique selections that you will find anywhere. Sweet, hot, and everything in between, plus tomatoes, herbs, and more. Everything is organically grown, and they ship plants nationwide for the spring, timed for your area, so they are ready to go right in your garden. And if you are into making sauces or preserving, they even ship fresh peppers in the fall. You can check them out at the link in the show notes to see what varieties catch your eye.