This is the front yard when we got the house last October. It had a raised fern bed with bricks and a holly tree ON TOP of the raised bed (this was strange to me).
The evolution of my butterfly garden... (lots of pics)
Another view of the way things were last October.
Toward the end of October I started removing the ferns. They were completely removed by Christmas. Here's a pic of them half removed.
Things got more extreme 6 months later. In the beginning of April we rented a backhoe and plowed down the holly tree and the raised bed. Here is my beautiful dirt! (and my beautiful dog) :)
Here's the start of my garden (all Central Florida native plants)! It looks a little bare right now because I'm not done planting and the plants are still young. After I put down the pine needle mulch and everything grows a little more it will be much cooler looking. Not bad though I think! I can't wait to see the butterflies!
Included (so far) are:
Piloblephis rigida - Florida pennyroyal
Ruellia caroliniensis - Wild petunia
Asclepias curassavica - Scarlet milkweed
Salvia lyrata - Lyreleaf sage
Vernonia angustifolia - Tall ironweed
Monarda punctata - Horsemint
Licania michauxii - Gopher apple
Solidago fistulosa - Pine-barren goldenrod
Liatris spicata - Blazing star
Salvia coccinea - Tropical sage
I am also planting these (and eventually other) host plants nearby:
Zanthoxylum clava-herculis - Hercules' club
Lindera benzoin - Spicebush
Passiflora incarnata - Maypop
Another view of the garden so far.
Last view
Passi,
What a bold move!!! Takes a lot of guts, willpower and muscle to remove an existing flower bed and totally revamp it.
I am 100% positive you will be very happy when your plants start growing and filling in that area. You've chosen a wonderful selection of butterfly nectar and larval hosts.
Congrats!!! Do hope you will keep us updated with new photos as the plants grow and of course, when the butterflies show up too.
~ Cat
That oughta be very nice once things get to blooming, easy for me to envision how beautiful it will be very soon.
You go girl!
Deb
Please continue posting pictures as your new garden matures.
Stephanie - Your new garden looks great!!!! Lots of hard work so far, but hopefully you will start seeing some growth and butterflies. You have some nice nectar and host plants.
Additional suggestions would be dill, curly parsley, or fennel for the Black Swallowtail butterfly cats. The larger variety of Porterweed and also Lantana are huge nectar plants in my yard and are pretty heat tolerant as well for our Florida climate.
I noticed you had a smaller tree to one side of your yard not too far from the garden. If there are some more tender plants that can't tolerate the hot, blazing sun of Florida, they might do well under this tree for partial sunlight. I see that you had some grass area in front of your garden bed. Is it separated by some kind of barrier such as wood, block, plastic edging, etc.? The reason I ask is because grass tended to creep into my garden beds until I put an edging around my bed. And if you use pine needles or some other type of mulch (something that termites don't like) in your garden bed that will certainly keep the moisture in the ground for the plant roots to thrive.
You are off to a great start!!!!
I don't know if you've used this website before to determine what butterflies frequent your county, but it will also list the host and nectar plants if you click on the butterfly and moth names. Just click on the county you live in the upper right hand.
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/map?x=278&y=195&_fc=1
Good Luck and happy planting!!!
Great job passie! Your plant selection should really draw them in!
Please show us picks as it develops.
Passi, awesome job!! The only plant we share is the Hercules Club -- you are going to LOVE it!! When it blooms, it has an amazing lemon/lime fragrance. And it will be covered in butterflies, bees, wasps, and flies. But be very careful of the thorns. Mine came with the house I bought in 1994 (back when I knew nothing about butterflies, now I just know "next" to nothing!!), and I am SO glad I never had it cut down. Congrats on your butterfly garden. Your dog is a cutie, too.
Carla
Passiflora, I love that you used all native plants. Please continue to post updated pic's as your new garden takes off.
Great work!
Thanks for the comments, everyone! I will definately post some updates in a month or so when things are looking a little more "wild". I'm being kind of impatient right now; waiting for them the grow. I inspect the plants about daily for signs of new growth or new blooms. Its feels so satisfying seeing life flourish after all the work is done - one of the things I love best about gardening!
Beckygardener: I'm still trying to decide what to put under that other tree. It used to be a mess of invasive Lantana and a few bromeliads and weeds. I'm in the process of clearing all that out, but I'm not sure what will go there instead. I was going to just put Florida coontie there, but I hadn't considered using the area for butterflies. It is a good idea too because it gets partial sun and is close to the butterfly garden. I will look at some other options now. Do you know of any native plants for black swallowtail cats? Everywhere I look lists parsley, dill, etc., but those aren't native plants. I wonder what their host plant is in the wild...? ....also thanks so much for linking me to that butterflies and moths website. I love it!!
Becky & Stephanie~
Is Lobelia cardinalis - Cardinal Flower a Florida native? It will grow in part shade.
Yes it is!
I actually just ordered 3 cardinal flower plants yesterday from Mail Order Natives (local nursery was out). I could put them under the tree and save the really sunny spot for other things (my sunny spots are limited). Thanks for the suggestion :)
It looks like in a month or so, you are going to have a beautiful garden. Good for you!! Be sure and keep us posted. I checked out the lobelia cardinalis on Google. It is beautiful. It sounds like all the plants that you have chosen are butterfly inclined.
Are all of the plants you listed perennials? One of the things I have done on my butterfly garden is leave lots of space for summer and winter annuals. It not only gives a little more color but they attract butterflies and hummingbirds.
Beautiful work...
Thanks,
Chuck
Oh lucky you, Stephanie! I have tried to purchase both plants AND get seeds in a swap for Cardinal Flower plants and have had NO luck getting them to grow in my yard. Let me know how yours do from the Mail Order Natives shipment. If yours do well, I might try ordering some plants from them as well.
Chuck - I agree with you 100%. I have been growing annuals for the first time this year and I LOVE them! They do fill in my garden beds so quickly and lovely! Good suggestion!!!!
I do the same thing Chuck and Becky. The perennials blooms their time, but the annuals bloom non-stop all summer and sometimes reseed which is an added bonus.
I've never had any luck with Cardinal Flower either, I've tried it in boggy and average soils and they just died. I don't think they like our summer heat.
The BSTs like the Ptilimnium nuttallii, P, costatum, and P. capillaceum. I don't have any of these plants, so Passi, if you get some...let us know!
Me too. As the water in my pond evaperates, I plant zinnas where water used to be to have as much color as possible around my fishing pond.
In reading about Cardinal Flower, the info says it needs winter sun at the basil rosette. No mulch at all at the base in winter. I have a few seedlings up but they're not big enough to set out yet. I winter sowed them.
Stephanie ,Becky,Fly The trick with cardinal flower here in the heat of florida is truely keep it constantly moist. When planted from seed the first year they just devolpe into the small rosette,sometimes it will take off but from seed it's the second year you get the stalk to take off.Now here's the secret.If your going to plant in a container .Take an over size container like a 5 or 7 gallon and fill the bottom 1/3 with dirt and then put a dish washing pan or something that will hold water in it which just about the same diameter as the container then fill the container up the rest of the way with potting mix and plant your cardinal in that.That will be your portable bog.They like full sun and don't let it dry out (hard to do with inside water holder in it)
My plants that I started last year have been in gallon containers sitting in trays that are full of water all the time.
I bought one from a florida native nursery last year that was a second year and I did just as explained above and it flowered from august to early october and got about 6 feet tall. Don't forget to stake it if it's in a container.
Hope that helps Don
Thanks Don, I may try it again.......it is a pretty plant.
Thanks from me too, Don. I'll try that technique.
Don - YOU ARE THE MAN!!!! Thank you for the great suggestion! Why I didn't think of that is beyond me...... lol! I have been seriously thinking about getting a really small and swallow kiddie pool and burying it in one of the bogless beds in my backyard. I just haven't found the right size plastic pool yet. I want something that is maybe 3' in diameter and maybe 12-18" deep.
Gosh! 6' tall! Now that is really awesome!!! Do you get hummers nectaring from it?
Now if I can just get my hands on some fresh Cardinal Flower seeds. (I know that they are hard to come by.)
Glad ya threw that in Don, just in time...I just got 3 small plants and put them in a shady corner of the back yard.. Hope they get nice and big like yours!!
Deb
Becky, How about one of those black (2X4) mortar mixing containers they sell at Home Depot nice thick heavy duty plastic probably need a smaller hole than most things I can think of.
As for hummers on it I wasn't that lucky , But the guy who told me the secret trick said he got 5 or 6 at a time on the cardinal flower and the standing cyrpress. Don
Pssst! Don, Can you get Standing Cypress??
Deb,
real quietly now ,I think you can get standing cypress (ipomopsis rubra) seeds at Select seeds antique flower for about $2.75 and Diane's Flower seeds and I also think you can get the plants from Annie's Annuals Just between you and me (lol) Don
pssst...as for standing cypress seeds...you can get a lot more and much cheaper from GrocoSeeds on ebay ;o) I've been buying bulk seeds from Daren for several years...extremely quick shipping and really inexpensive shipping costs.
~ Cat
This message was edited Apr 23, 2007 5:44 PM
WoW,....a standing cypress is pretty. I'll have to locate some seeds myself.
Oh, and 'hi' Don. The flowers I got from you are all doing fine. : )
~Lucy
Don - Ditto on what Lucy said! The Jacaranda tree and the little Plumeria are doing great! I have them both potted up. The larger Jacaranda is lovely and growing very nicely! (The smaller one that was in the package is not so good, been hanging in there barely.) And the Plumeria has two leaves with a 3rd one budding. I really appreciate both of the plants, Don! Thank you again!!!! :-)
I had no idea what a "Standing Cypress" plant is. So checked DG Plantfiles. Woweee! That has got to be a BIG hummer magnet!! How tall do those babies get?????
Lucy,great to hear from ya.That's great the plants are doing good.
Becky,happy to hear the plants are doing good as well. As far as the standing cypress I've got 2 pots of about 5 in one and one in the other.They flowered last year real sparsely but were real young.The little flower buds were real pretty .I should have staked them but didn't and the stalks went side ways.I'm going to be repotting this week to a 5 gallon and staking.The seeds as I can remember were a little tough to get to germinate but I was doing it in January so I think if you were to try now you'd probably have better luck.The one that's solo in the pot is about 24 inch's tall right now but looks like it's going to get bigger. Now if I could get some Hummer's to come and chow down. Don
Thank you Don and Cat!!! I will check into the sources y'all gave!!
:-)
Don - Are those plants drought tolerant?
Becky, not really. When mine got big enough to transplant I went right to a 3 gallon pot that was heavy on the peat so they would go a day or two without watering. Also I believe they like a shot of acid every now and then.I throw my used coffee grinds into them every now and then. Don