Black Swallowtail Butterfly Hatches

We planted two bronze fennel plants in our front flower bed last year, and this year we've got gorgeous black swallowtail caterpillars all over it.



Some of them have turned into chrysalis (if I have that term right).



And today we're watching one in the process of turning into a butterfly.



They've eaten part of the plant, but that's perfectly fine.



I put the plants in the wrong place, actually. I didn't realize that they're supposed to grow four feet tall, so I put them in the front of the bed, since they were really small when I bought them. Fortunately (?), they only got to be two feet tall, probably because of the heavy clay (construction backfill) in that bed. I've been working on amending it, but it's slow going.

I planted three more fennel plants today!