Question: A few weeks ago, I attended a butterfly class at the library, and went and bought milkweed plants for my yard. They have grown quite well, but one has had all of its leaves eaten by monarch caterpillars. I knew they would come to eat some, but all of the leaves are gone on that plant. My question is, will the leaves grow back and is this normal?

Answer: You can see that attracting wildlife to your yard may have its price. Leave the plant alone, and it might send out some side shoots because at every leaf node there is a bud for a new branch. It could send out a new shoot from the roots, or it might just die. If it does send out new leaves and it gets more caterpillars, move them to one of the other plants.

Next time there is a large number of caterpillars on one plant and none on the other plants, move some caterpillars around. It is better to lose a few leaves on several plants than to lose them all on one plant. Some plants seem to do fine with the occasional defoliation and others don't recover, so the safe choice is to spread out the damage.

Question: I have lots of the right larval and host plants, but I am getting few butterflies. I planted this butterfly garden a few years ago, but it seems to be a bust. What could the problem be?

Answer: In the case of movie baseball players the quote is something like: "If you build it they will come." Unfortunately, in the real live case of wildlife, if you build it, they may not come, but if you don't build it they can't come. So, you did the right thing, but there may not be enough other nearby habitat for them to get to you. A little patience is necessary.

More of the right kinds of plants in your whole neighborhood will help. If you can talk to your neighbors or park district, maybe you can get more people to plant the right plants. As you know, the caterpillars of many butterflies only eat one or two kinds of plants. Specific species of plants attract specific species of butterflies. The adult butterfly needs flowers with nectar and it may prefer only flowers of a few different kinds.

Other potential problems in your landscape may be a dearth of water, or that birds are eating all the caterpillars, or maybe they are dying from insecticide use nearby.

You may also need to limit your expectations. If you look at a field guide for any kind of animal, it may color in a whole state to show that the animal lives there. Well, animals have habitats. For instance, a duck will only be found in the properly sized wet habitats that are large enough to supply it with food and a place to raise its young, not in every inch of the state or even in every wet spot in the state.

Butterflies are the same way. Some like hot areas and some cooler higher altitude areas and some like prairies. We can easily take the plants from all of those climates and grow them in our landscape. We can even grow them side by side in the same landscape in a way never found in nature. We will get a limited number of butterflies or birds that normally feed on those plants in such an unusual location.

That doesn't mean you should stop trying. Read more about the butterflies you want to attract, andS try to see what it is about their life cycle that is missing in your landscape. And I mean the landscape as a whole, not just the one limited by imaginary boundaries that butterflies can't see.

Email questions to Jeff Rugg at [email protected]. To find out more about Jeff Rugg and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.