Garden & Pollinator Blog

A full look at our North Texas insect garden: every plant, the bugs each one brings in, and the spiders, wasps, and larvae doing all our pest control.

Those cute little hands on a caterpillar are its only real legs. Here's why the six true legs stay for life and the prolegs disappear at the butterfly stage.

The bright orange forked organ a black swallowtail caterpillar everts when threatened is called the osmeterium. Here is how this stinky defense works.

A black swallowtail caterpillar hatches already knowing what to eat, because its mother tasted the plant with her feet first. Here is how she does it.

We raised black swallowtail butterflies on dill a few feet from our back door. Here is the full egg-to-butterfly journey from our North Texas garden.