Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: is strawberry gomphrena a host plant for anything?, 1 by konkreteblond

konkreteblond wrote:
What you have there is Purple Gomphrena and it makes a wonderful meal for a family of field mice! I had a couple of really big bushes like yours that I started from 2 little seeds. They were a pale purple, almost pinkish, and the mice would slice the stalks off and leave the flowers. I caught over 20 of them by just putting a little stalk in the live trap. I had seeds all over and not one of them germinated! I guess that's better than the mass growth I was expecting.

Now that you've reminded me, I'm going to dig out some seeds and start some more. Last year I didn't bother with them because I was afraid they were going to attract the mice back.

I sometimes see a little butterfly using the red ones, Strawberry Fields. I love these! They do reseed and I have had several come up but not like I'd like. They get taller than the purple and can be prone to falling over if not mixed in with things.