It's so true - You can never go go back... I was invited to go back to my former home in NJ to view the butterflies. I saw 2 good southern strays, a Long-tailed and a Fiery skipper. Along with those butterflies I saw 4 Monarchs, 6 Common Buckeye, a Black Swallowtail and lots of Sachem. But I'd estimate between 30 and 40% of the gardens are gone in just 2 summers. They used black mulch and (I guess) mulched the self seeding plants under - Partridge Pea, Verbena bonariensis among others. There is no swamp milkweed left when there had been 7 large stands of it, Purple milkweed gone, all cone flowers gone, Spicebush tree dead and hackberry tree cut down. The back is just a disaster and it was sad. I saw many mulberry seedlings, several of which are already 3ft high. Sounds crazy but I'd rather see grass than piles of black mulch.
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| Long-tailed Skipper |
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| Long-tailed Skipper |
Fiery Skipper 
Common Buckeye 
Common Buckeye 
Monarch 
Sachem
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