Attack of the Gulf Fritillaries!

With all of the rain we've had recently, it's such a pleasure to see the growth in the gardens.

In the backyard behind the pool, we have our three "color panels" starting to take shape! The two outside panels have different colors of bougainvilleas.

The smaller shrimp colored bougainvillea on the left panel.

A big bright magenta on the right.

The center panel was planted with a small purple passionflower vine. With all of the rain, it has grown in leaps in bounds! Yesterday, I was able to catch it's first bloom; however, it was mangled from falling on the ground in the torrential downpours.

So I trained the vine up onto the wood panels and hoped that the future blooms would open up in the next day or two and show beautiful blooms. I checked again when I got home...

Sadly, not mangled by the rain, but eaten by caterpillars. Upon closer examination, little caterpillars littered the passionflower.

I checked online and found they are gulf fritillaries. Gonna leave them for now and see if they stick around. Even though they ate the passionflower vine, it looks like it's going to be ok and continue growing,. Just decided that if they've already had their fill, perhaps they will be able to grace our backyard once they become beautiful butterflies!