Stinging Nettles - Who is Killing My Plant!?!? 

Red Admirals are native, and it's been a good year for them, lots up where I am in Ontario. Stinging Nettle isn't native however Red Admirals, and a few other butterflies and moths feed on them as caterpillars. I'm happy they can do so just as they do on native Wood Nettle and False Nettle. Caterpillars are the backbone of what feeds the multitude of baby birds born every year. No caterpillars, no song birds (except for some weirdos like finches, bless their seed feeding hearts). We've all got blind spots, glad you're curious Sean.

Red Admirals range from southern Canada and the US to the northern part of Mexico. They're a holarctic species, i.e., also found in Europe/northern Asia. Because they can't survive cold winters, they migrate to northern parts of North America every spring. Stinging nettle taxonomy is historically complicated with the American species (Urtica gracilis) ultimately declared a separate species (originally a sub-species) of the European nettle (Urtica dioica). You would encounter both in your region, and I assume both host the same specific caterpillars...who are not "interlopers." They're simply part-time residents, native in the appropriate season, not in the least "invasive," but living in balance with the nettle population.

Regarding stinging nettles, when I was a kid we visited an uncle in France. I was amazed to see that the local farmer fed her chickens stinging nettles. She waited till the nettles were wilted before feeding them to the chickens. I still remember seeing the hens rushing to be the first to eat the nettles.

Red admirals actually eat excess tree sap and rotting fruit and rotting dead animals. So beautiful and so useful. Lovely to have the space for some nettles for their babies.

Isn't it amazing how our experience of an evet changes when we shift perspective. I'm glad to meet your butterflies.

If everyone were as curious about nature, and if they pursued a deeper understanding of nature's complex system, we'd all be in a better place. Thank you for continuing to share this important message of appreciation.

Its been a huge flight of red admirals this spring. Last one was 2012. They are native.btw.

A couple of years ago I had a pretty little bug hang out in the parsley flowers. They must have been eating the pollen. They hung out on the flowers and didn't fly off much. 100's of them were climbing all over the flowers and most of them were mating. I hoping to see them again. I never looked into what kind of bug they were. I was fascinated by the the life my parsley flowers were supporting. Thank you for the story.

The Red Admiral Butterfly is beautiful (I had to look it up)! How fortunate you are to have enough abundance to share with visitors and baby butterflies! 🧡🌻 Will they all emerge at about the same time? Game-cam time ?! 😄 Please continue sharing this adventure and great learning experience. Thank you for this presentation...I learned quite a bit. 🌻

Red admirals are native in Minnesota, as migratory visitors. I keep a patch of nettles just for them, just as I allow milkweed to thrive for monarchs, and dill to grow where ever wants for our native black swallowtails. (The dill isn't native, but I don't want most of their native host plants in my garden)

According to my insect guide, Red Admirals feed on hops, ramie, & nettles. The Red Admiral is found the world around in the northern hemisphere.

Thank you so much for your deep and thoughtful perspective. The world needs more of this perspective.

A reminder that we all have our place in nature and that we can all live happily together - thank you!!

A great way to look at nettles and so called pests. Thank you again for the way you teach!!

Love and respect both the surface and deeper layer message/advice being conveyed here!

Your channel, lectures and information is really astonishing and hopefully influential to your audience. You are doing a great job. Thank you for sharing your education and understanding the cycle and patterns of reality.

I just love your philosophy, rock on Sean!

❤❤ Always love your take on what could be a very negative thing.

What a beautiful perspective! Thank you for offering a way to reframe our thinking by observing before taking action, being curious, and openheartedly kind to all life.

Larval butterflies are called caterpillars, not grubs. Red Admirals are considered native but migratory, like monarchs. According to James Scott (who wrote the best reference on North American butterflies, in my opinion), they sometimes reach Greenland. They are in Chicagoland by lilac blooming season every spring.

I think "non native" is not quite correct - they are migratory, just like monarchs! In German, we have a word for butterflies, whose caterpillars feed on nettles: Nesselfalter (nettle butterflies) - there are several: small tortoiseshell, peacock, comma, map butterfly, admiral, I think i'm missing some. They are probably not in the chicken yard, because they are bird food. A very important bird food. basically every bird species feeds catapillars to their babies.

Stinging nettle also makes a very good compost tea. Thank you for sharing what you have learned so if some of us find these we will think twice..😊 looks like one of those perfect symbiotic relationships! As others have a commented the presence of all of those larva provide spring food for baby birds and of course butterflies are good pollinators so they are benefiting all of us.

This was the most fantastic spring for the Red Admiral here in Central Texas on their way north. It was truly magical, with dozens of them visiting the garden each day.

I made this same discovery this year and I’m in southern Vermont - so cool they used the nettles as a host! The nettle has fully recovered since they left too.

We have red admirals in Colorado and they are beautiful. Many butterflies migrate north and then return south, so what is native and what isn't? We often concentrate on pollinators, but having host plants for the larvae of the pollinators is just as important because without the host plants, there are no pollinators in the end. Yes, plant a lot of what you want in different places and give nature its due and be grateful for the bounty that remains.

I wish all the slugs currently devastating my garden would turn into butterflies. Alas, no luck

I wondered the same thing when I saw it in my nettle patch also. I have already harvested some for tea so It al works out. Thak you for this invaluable information.😃👍

I had some of those in my patch this year as well. Thanks for figuring out who the guests are. I also was just watching a video from the UK and saw a photo of the red admiral butterfly her in their garden.

Beautiful how very respectfull you're talking about them 🙏🏼 It's our duty to respect ALL of creation and not only those of them which we like! 🤷🏻‍♂️

Beautiful thoughts! Nature can teach us that diversity makes our lives rich and nourishing. Thank you for your encouragement to use observation and curiosity as tools to create a better life.

They are gorgeous butterflies! Nettles are one of their the host plants. Very special to see!

I saw these butterflies so early in spring in same area, so I had never seen them before either and had to look them up. Figured I must have something they liked but didn’t know what. They can have at it, then I will compost tea it. Thanks so much.

I too, plant my plants in various places, nooks and crannies! As in your experience, some might be a host and others thrive. Its so wonderful being curious and experimenting with nature! Thank you for your video.

I brought nettles to our urban/suburban backyard intentionally. (It’s native in France). Even hubby that likes a more manicured garden than I do approved. It’s an extremely useful plant. Butterflies are prime examples that if you want beauty in the garden, in life, you must accept the chewed out /caterpillar phase before the ’show’ :)

I also was distressed to see the caterpillars on my nettles, took a few inside my house, they ate nettles like crazy before cocooning, and I was thrilled to release the butterflies when they hatched. Now I’m ready and harvesting the nettles I need before they show up.

In Germany gardeners are encouraged to keep a nettle corner as an ecological niche for butterflies. Nettle manure tea (?) is a go to fertilizers here. Nettle tea is also a great rinse for dark hair, the seeds are great in salads and and Muesli.

Hmmm...I will have to keep a look out for that black grub type and butterfly. Dont think ive seen those in my nettles. Im going to have to dig mine up and move them because they keep growing out in the walkway stinging my husband and grandson. Appreciate your thoughtful discussion.

How amazing is this!

Fascinating and good to know!

Ms. Vanessa Atalanta. Awesome 🦋

Wow, the Admirals are loving your nettles! Red Admirals are a rare species in NZ and so people often plant the plants they enjoy, just for them. We are able to share our nettle patch and over the years have just learnt to check leaves and shake off any tiny caterpillars before we make tea. At some point we don't harvest from the nettles and just leave it for the Admirals. We get early season harvest and the Admirals get it from then on (it's an unsigned contract we have with our butterflies ;).

Red Admiral... Great name and lovely butterfly. Good video.

We have these in western europe aswel, often 2 generations a year. After the butterflies pop out, you can cut the nettle patches back and get fresh new growth.

I've been growing nettles for a while but no butterflies for me. However, I do get black swallowtail butterflies eating my parsley and dill. The swallowtails are so beautiful that I welcome them every summer. BTW, thanks for the reminder that Homo Sapiens are an invasive species, too.

I love this dialougue. I think it begs the question are there ppl out there who are truly putting the thought forward when thinking about the bigger picture of life and all its little crazy surprises. I think about that alot when I'm staring down the massive expanse of a knotweed patch on a local city bike path/ trail. Why is it here, how did it get here, how much of an impact is it having. I made some key observations and that was the trail was developed by clear cuttings and causing heavy disturbance and gave the knotweed which was clearly kicked from a small patch on some construction crews boot along a very large expanse of the trail. The seeds lay Dormant for some years actually. Then it established itself quickly in the void of others. I noticed the alders, the bowers clematis,wild cucumber,goldenrod and joepye really create a boundary for the knotweed and they seem to grow together and in some areas the golden rod stops the knotweed from moving In completely. The soil the knotweed creates is very soft and pliable and dark...filled with a humus smell . The woody stems host insects in winter and the flowers are coveted by lots of flying ones. They really thrive in the full sun and dwindle under a dark canopy. So this invasive has sped up the soil building work with carbon sequestration, blanketing the earth, providing habitat for insects but also small rodents from large prey and snakes seem to nestle in underneath to find food. I think the plant will no longer be here once the alders thicket up and the poplars sore above them and the goldenrod creates a barrier. They have successfully been a pioneer in the landscape that is completing something that would take alot of other species much Longer to do. This comment will rock the native plant community and by all means I am apologizing ahead of time if this seems like an ignorant comment to post but I really do feel that the work of these beings is purpose driven and if we could live to see 300 years from now that knotweed patch will be long gone and If left untouched by human hands it will leave behind a rich soil for others.

Truly awesome👌. Observe, understand, before interacting. Thanks for sharing.

There's a great board game all about the voyage of the red admiral called Mariposas as well. Well worth checking out if that's your sort of thing.

I've seen a lot of rolled leaves this year too. The "Vulcain" (its french name) is present all over the year where I live. But I checked inside some leaves and it was the catterpillar of another specie, probably a "mother of pearl". Anyway a lot of buttreflies need the stinging neetles for their cycle, I'm glad to see them.

We have and love red admirals butterflies here in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK. I have about an acre of garden and look forward to the butterflies returning every year. It can be quite cold here just 2 miles from the North Sea but they come most years along with other butterflies. I do leave nettles to grow in various areas of the garden and although some get scabby, others are lush enough to harvest mainly to dry for tea etc. I take the view that we should share our plants with wildlife wherever possible eg. I grow enough raspberries without netting so I have a decent harvest even although the birds have a good feed! Unless red admirals are detrimental to other indigenous species I think it would be fine to just appreciate their beauty.

Just pulled out a patch of stinging nettles because it adjoined my neighbor's yard and horse pasture. Dug out soooo many roots! I'm sure some will pop up again, tough to get out all those roots. Around April 11th we had dozens and dozens of red admiral butterflies in the yard and made the connection to the nettle patch. Sooooo amazing! Planning to compost the top part of the nettle plant and dispose of roots in garbage. Too afraid to try to eat them! You always have an interesting perspective on things. :)

In North America, several butterflies use Urtica as host plants (I believe something callee a Fire Rim only uses them), but I have only seen the Red Admirals. Most of the nettle eaters prefer fermented fruit or sap to flowers as adults, but I have seen Red Admirals visit Allium, Hylotelephium, and lilacs. If you bait with fermented fruit, you need to block ants (the sticky tree glue stuff works).

Thank you for this video! I just discovered them on my nettle patch today and was stumped and alarmed at the extent of damage and how quickly it happened. Especially when I didn't recognize the caterpillars. First time in all my years that anything has fed on ny nettle and it is a sudden and dramatic decimation. I feel so much better after your video though! Guess the butterflies get the first harvest. Have you found that cutting it back after the butterflies emerge helps the nettle to rebound?

Awesome I used to make lots of compost tea out of the stinging nettle stinki but good for the plants 😊

Interesting. I just noticed them on my nettles today and my first thought was that my wife must have sprayed it with salt and vinegar until I noticed the larvae. I’m several hundred miles north of you.

I have read in Sepp Holzer's book that stigning nettle is an indicator plant of exces nitrogen. I suppose that the nettles in your chicken run are well fed in nitrogen and thrive (not invaded) but the ones in your garden are in a less nitrogen rich soil (they are then susceptible to pest damage). Next year it would be fun if you added compost to half the infested bed in your garden !

This is a great video. I really appreciate your perspective. I notice that we humans often put ourselves in the centre of everything. I do believe we need to think of other beings as well when we consider taking action, and this is such a lovely example of doing that. Thank you.

I shuddered every time you touched a nettle. I cannot, I react so strongly to nettle, ouch!

What you initially thought of the grubs is what I think of the stinging nettles!

thank you so much for researching and understanding these critters..they are having a hard time right now as well many other species that migrate large distances and we, are destroying their landing places, killing them without learning who they are and using pesticides right and left. By the way i now i have a problem with a new neigboor that is spraying pesticides on my backyard (half) and on my plants and vegies. Tomorrow (Monday) i will call the department of agriculture who oversees the illegal uses of pesticides in urban areas. I was getting super sick and i was not aware was going on...I was eating contaminated food, and leaves of tulsi, making tea of tulsi and i was not aware of what i had in my backyard. I was so sick that i was not even able to work on the garden anymore. Until, the Lord told me to stop using tulsi, still, my health issues were not getting better...until i got the message...pesticides watch out. follow the spraying pattern and voila. Even my dogs are getting sick...i hate when people do that...i do not use insecticides or pesticides to protect critters and my own health and here it comes idiots that are entitled to spray systematically land and private property at will...

I was a mighty hunter of butterflies when I was 10 or so and not so far from where you are now.(Rochester) My reaction when you named it was "lucky you!" If you had a roadside stand, try putting a $5 price tag on a chrysalis or put the stem in your bedroom and let it hatch and fly around for a day before releasing it out the window.

Nettle's have 4 times the vitamin C as oranges ounce by ounce! Plus many other nutrients! You can also ferment Nettles with organic brown sugar and make a concentrated liquid foliage spray that will mix 500 parts rain water with only one part concentrate. I also use the fermented liquid to soak my bio char in for a week or 2 before I apply it. 👍

I love that your initial response was the same as most of us feel. Usually binary - we quickly sort everything into Good or Bad. You then paused, learned, thoughtfully reconsidered and presented us with an answer that was like wisdom from a Zen master. Then your deeper message - apply this to all areas of your garden, and your life. Well done. Peace my friend.

I will watch my new nettle patch, two plants at this point, and not freak out if this happens.

Sean, your friend Eric just did a video about the spongy moth caterpillars in a similar vein, with some really interesting observations.

Nice video

Years ago I raised one of the caterpillars to observe their lifecycle and a parasitoid wasp hatched instead of a butterfly. So the predators are also already here to keep their numbers in check.

I love this!

Observation and learning is the only way humans will stop trying to control and ruin nature's balance. Thank you for taking the time to learn about what is happening:)

I am south of you by a couple of states and then I have a huge nettle patch that I don’t have to do much with just keep it from encroaching in my yard. I’ve never noticed anything bothering mine. I would think that anything hatched here that has to travel south is native to here. It’s not just visiting.

The chickens probably ate the tiny caterpillars right after they hatch. Red Admiral is a lovely butterfly and the nettles will spring back. I planted nettles specifically for butterflies...and me. Butterfly feces 💩 is called frass. 💖🦋🌿

Red admirals are native to New York. Meaning they coevolved with the local flora and fauna and are an important part of a diverse ecosystem there, even if they winter in the southern us or Central America. This is very different than non natives that are well behaved, do not spread quickly and do not harm native ecosystems or invasives that decimate/eradicate biodiversity in whole regions of a country- other plants, insects, birds etc. invasiveness is less about where something is from and more about how deadly it is to all other life that evolved in that region of the world.

i just started growing nettles recently!

I've let the yard and garden overgrow with weeds to see what comes. Noticed two garter snakes, what benefit do you think these guys bring?

I like admirals because they’ll get the nettle in areas I do t want it. The main bed I harvest like every 3 months and the butterflies can have all the ones in my less ideal locations.

The phenomenon may not occur every season too. Observation is the key as you point out.

I didn’t think anything could hurt these plants lol they are king in our landscapes

Love this

Meanwhile I grew nettle for the butterflies that consume them for caterpillars. Not just red admirals but many other butterflies that rely upon them as host plants. We all learn and can all make mistakes but the red admiral Vanessa atalanta is a native butterfly species to a majority of the world. Me I would have been taking every caterpillar, raise them and then release them once they become butterflies.

I like your perspective! Do you ever deal with plum curculio?

Can you harvest Stinging Nettle all summer or just in the spring? Thank you.

I’ve got those on my nettles too

Lovely human being

I love the beautiful alternative perspective! Which I'm sure this idea could be applied to the ongoing border crisis and illegal immigrants situation, but that's NOT the topic for this video..simply an observation.. Thank you for sharing 😃

I harvest stinging nettles too but living in the UK they turn up uninvited and are generally viewed as a weed, so the idea of planting them is kinda weird to me 😉 Red Admirals are native here but they have to share the nettles with Peacock, Comma and Small Tortoiseshell and a few moths. Many people leave a small nettle patch in their garden just for the butterflies.

I have a bunch of whatever nettle variety is endemic to my area, but I don't really utilize it. It's just part of my diverse mixture of weeds (along with many perennial herbs and flowers and various groundcovers and raspberries and blackberries and wild strawberries and domestic strawberies and,and,and...) some of it is meadow, some might be too tall to be considered meadow, some of it shady woods. consequently, there are a ton of insects both good and bad, but nothing gets wiped out wholesale since it's so jumbled together, and the songbirds thin out most of the bugs at least somewhat. sort of like your guilds but far more chaotic. entropy in action. I don't sweat it. I do kill cucumber beetles, though, because screw them.

What is that other lance leafed plant rising up through the nettles? I think we have some of that, as well as some nettles.

I have never seen stinging nettle been attacked by anything...this was a surprise..

Is anyone else seeing a black virus on your Lemon balm, Peppermint or Stinging Nettle??? It's WAY TO EARLY IN THE SEASON FOR THIS? Did they spray something?

I would say if they find their way there naturally, they are now native. Nature is adapting as best it can.

I sprayed vinegar with water on my plants with those bugs and it worked.

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.

They come from New Zealand

The Red Admiral butterfly is common in the UK, as are nettles. I think your problem may be more to do with fetching in strangers. Stinging nettles do like to make their own minds up about where they grow, however now you have pointed it out I will have a closer if careful look in future. Incidentally, I watched a Russian vid on YT, called the Ulengovs. In one episode the mother makes a smoothy entirely from nettles, she gives it to her three-year-old who knocks it back like nectar, licks then smacks her lips. The vlog is entirely concerning rural and remote areas of the Russia Federation, I do not believe you will be arrested for watching it.😀

👍

Stinging Nettle intrigues me, but im uncertain about growing it in my landscape. Lol

I believe that everything gets balanced eventually. And if you think about everything that is alive was invasive at some point. And the benefits can show themselves years down the road, maybe some birds will need extra food one day and the butterflies will be there. 😉

😊🌱💚🌻🐝

While you may be invasive Sean we still like you. Interesting.. I need to add nettles myself someplace..

Have a garden rule, don't kill if you don't know someone's name. Now I still kill lots of stuff accidentally

I installed bug app so I don't kill good bugs in my garden.