A Garden Without Caterpillars

Monarch Caterpillar

We've had plenty of Monarch butterflies visiting our front yard butterfly garden all summer, but until recently we had seen no Monarch caterpillars.  The Asclepia plants are all thriving this year, although by now they should have been nibbled down to bare stalks by the caterpillars.

We would think it was just our yard, but other Master Gardeners in San Diego are reporting the same problem in their gardens:  no Monarch caterpillars.

We saw two small ones about a week ago, but they are gone now.  They were both too small to have pupated already, so something is clearly still nobbling our caterpillars (I learned that word from watching the delectable British TV series Pie In The Sky).

It might be the Lesser Goldfinches, as we saw one trying to imitate a hummingbird as she attacked a huge Tomato Hornworm in the back yard a couple of weeks ago.  She wasn't afraid to go after that enormous worm, but she also didn't succeed in getting it off the tomato vine.

Another suspect is the same one we considered last year at this time:  wasps.  We haven't seen any of the Mud Dauber wasp nests this year, but the Paper Wasps in the back yard not only revived their old nest from last year, but also constructed a large three part wasp condo under the patio cover.  You would think they could have taken out that hornworm, but noooo.

One thing I don't think we'll try again is the caterpillar cage we tried last year when we were having the same problem (See Co-dependent to Caterpillars, Part II).  As the subsequent posts from October and November of last year show, that effort was pretty much of a disaster, so I think they'll just have to figure it out on their own.

We'll probably have to hire a pro to get those wasp nests down, though.