08/06/2026
Some scientist somewhere had one job — name a group of butterflies — and they got it exactly right.
A gathering of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope, and late summer is when your garden is most likely to host one. This stretch of August is peak flight season: the year's last generation is fueling up, and in a few weeks the monarchs among them begin one of the longest journeys in the insect world — up to 3,000 miles, to mountain forests in Mexico they have never seen.
If a few of them are wobbling over your zinnias this week, that's not wandering. That's a send-off.
Leave the flowers standing a little longer. The kaleidoscope is passing through.
