We usually get long periods with no rain, during Summer, but this is the worst for many years.
My garden is super dry, with plants dying, and the swan plants (milkweed) just have to fend for themselves.
You may recall that, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that a Monarch butterfly finally flew into the garden (hadn't seen one up until then) and laid some eggs. I saved the eggs under a mosquito net cover and gave the plants they were on, as much water as we could spare.
Two eggs hatched and by the time we went away last week, for 7 days, the two tiny caterpillars were still okay.
We returned, yesterday, to an even drier property than we left with most of the garden really struggling and no rain predicted for quite some time. On a positive note the two caterpillars are now big fat Monarch caterpillars, growing well under their mosquito net enclosure and looking to be almost ready to make their chrysallis's.
(and do excuse the not-so-good phone photo - best I can do right now)