This year, I made a concerted effort to find plants that butterflies like. They always seemed to be around when I was a kid, and I wanted my kids to experience them as well. This is what we have seen this summer.
I'm sure that most of you know the names, species and phone numbers of these. I can only provide the color and the plants (mostly).
This butterfly was enjoying my coneflowers so much that he refused to leave, even though I walked by him several times taking pictures.
This is actually a different day, but I believe it is the same guy on the same coneflowers.
Although I have lots of flowers, the big butterflies like the coneflowers best.
A couple of little brown guys on my crazy daisies.
Look carefully. There are three little brown guys on my Kim's knees. I must have a least a hundred little brown and white butterflies.
I don't think that this pretty yellow butterfly is with us anymore. I found a wing on my driveway.
Another view of him and his friend.
This one is perched on a white geranium.
Resting on lantana
Last shot. One of the little white guys on the catmint. They don't rest long, so they are hard to take pictures of.
Overview shot of the garden. I have five types of coneflowers, black and blue salvia, lantana, crape myrtle, roses, blanketflowers, liatris, black eye susans, gloriosa daisies, irish eyes, catmint, lavender, stella doro's and various grasses, and lilies.
This is the walkway to the front door.
Oh... pennefeather, You have alot of lovely flowers, and beautiful butterflies. Thanks for showing us. : )
~Lucy
I'm gonna come to your house and steal seeds. lol ; )
Everything looks really nice. Good job. : )
BEAUTIFUL!!! That is what I want my garden to look like!! Do you hire out? ;-)
Carla
pennefeather - Your butterflies and garden flowers look awesome! I'm working on some similar beds with those same kind of plants! Nice to see how they all look together! Looks like a butterfly feast to me! :-)
This garden has been covered with butterflies. Everday, when the kids and I pull into the driveway, we just stand there and look at how many butterflies are flying around. It's just amazing. I have never seen so many live butterflies in one place before outside of an enclosed zoo area.
All of these flowers are in the front of the house, with the walkway running up the middle. In addition, I have three other beds in the front. No other house on our street looks like ours. I just tell people that we are the house with the flowers!
One of the islands:
Beautiful stuff pennefeather. I am so jealous. If I had that many butterflies in my yard over a month I would be thrilled. Great job on the butterfly habitat. I would say you did it right.
Leslie
I bet you get a lot of hummers, too? You've got some choice nectar plants in your garden beds! :-)
Penne, your gardens are beautiful!!! Looks like the coneflowers are a hit everywhere!
oooooooooo, what a beautiful butterfly garden... Have to get busy and add more of those coneflowers.. What grasses did they like??
Elaine
We've had one hummer come by pretty regularly. My son and I had the chance to watch him sipping from the black and blue salvia. It was exciting to watch. I actually have a feeder near the salvia as well, but I'm not sure if he has visited that one. The second feeder that is in the back of the house, I have seen the hummer at several times.
EF, I have purple fountain grass, hamlen fountain grass, ponytail grass, and carex. I have seen the butterflies on the hamlen, but I think it is because it is right next to the catmint that the white butterflies seem to like so much.
Blue Glancer, I read your troubles with the hurricanes. You are welcome to anything in my garden. Your garden has been through alot in a short time.
I never thought that we would have as many butterflies as we have. While they are beautiful to see, in a way, its kind of sad - they congregate in the areas that we provide for them because so many don't provide.
Lovely garden Pennefeather!
The Swallowtail in your first pic was a female. Whether it is a Black ST or a Tiger ST, it is hard to tell from the pic. If you have parsley you will find out very quick, because Black ST will lay eggs on lower growing Parsley and Carrot pllants. Female Tiger will be looking for Cherry, Tulip Poplars, or Willows.. (Trees mainly).Summer is so beautiful up there!
:-Deb
Penne, my flowers are beginning to look pretty good again. Nothing like yours tho. I was just kidding about stealing your seeds. (or was I) lol : )
Keep showing us more pictures, I'm getting alot of good ideas from looking at your place.
Sooooooo pretty. : )
~Lucy
I'm obviously spending too much time in the garden. This little guy decided to stop on several flowers within spitting distance of me - no fear whatsoever.
A view with the black eye susans in the background
He hung around for a while today, and I was shameless in taking my pictures.
Beautiful.. Beautiful... Beautiful.... You've got quite a beautiful garden and your butterfly pics are really great!!!!!!!
Does everybody in the neighborhood call ya the butterfly lady? : )
pennefeather - Nice photos! Lovely Tiger you have visiting your coneflower!
Which brings me to a question ......
I am growing some coneflowers from seeds planted back in late Spring. The plants have nice big leaves, but no blooms! How long does it take to get the blooms? I don't even see any buds yet! Just big, green leaves. Can anyone advise me about this? Thanks!
Becky, some of my coneflowers have huge leaves. If you planted them this spring, they should bloom this year. I began planting my seeds in late January/early February. I have a couple of hundred seedlings because I was determined not to go the nursery and buy plants. I ended up picking up a few that I had to have because they were so pretty.
If you ask at the perennial thread, there are alot of people with coneflower knowledge.
This is a picture of one shelf of the black eye susans that I started. I had 10 shelves of various plants this spring.
pennefeather - Thanks! If you planted yours from seed in the winter, maybe mine just need to grow a little longer before they get flowers.
I, also, have a bed of Black-eyed Susans! Those grow fast and bloomed for over a month for me! Love them!
I would love to have some information on milkweed. I am getting some of the smaller variety, I think that it is orange. It is only going to grow to 2 feet. Off the top of my head it might be tropicus. I've never grown milkweed.
Wow penne, those are nice healthy looking black eye susans. Nice. : )
Becky, I planted coneflowers in Spring also. One has just now put on a flower. The rest are still just leaves. But any day now, I hope. : )
~Lucy
My white coneflower bloomed back in June and is still blooming, but the pink coneflower is just now blooming. It has been a very strange blooming year with the drought.
Elaine
Great pics, penne, of your butterfly garden. I bet your kids just love it. I see your purple fountain grass in there and your pretty liatris and coneflowers! I'm sure the neighbors really are enthralled, too.
And BTW, if you haven't already, don't forget to plant some milk weed for the monarch migration in August and September. I think you are in the Atlantic flyway (lucky girl) and should have lots of visitors if you have some late fall nectar flowers (little joe pye weed and tithonia are two I've heard they love) and find some room for a few milkweeds. Here's the migration site: http://www.monarchwatch.org/tagmig/peak.html
Talking about your kids and butterfly gardening reminded me: I just had my two nieces visit (ages 5 and 10) from Cooperstown and two other little nieces from Alexandria, VA, for a week and they were totally enthralled with the butterfly garden. I copied coloring and drawing pages and word games about butterflies from the internet and had a few story books and ordered the movie about the 'Blue Morpho' butterfly http://www.preview-online.com/may-jun02/feature_articles/bluebutterfly/index.html
and had a butterfly scavenger hunt with cameras. They had loads of fun. So if you have a rainy day and you can't garden and the pool is closed....
Also made origami butterflies from this site: http://www.tammyyee.com/origamibutterfly.html
Please keep posting pics. We all want to see!
Wow, you are creative Tobasco!
I am hoping to plant three types of milkweed next week, so I should be covered. I went on a butterfly website yesterday, I have no idea which website it was, but they recommended a variety of milkweed. I am putting in asclpecias incarnata, curassavica, and tuberosa. I have no clue as to where I am going to put these. I guess I'll be expanding my beds again.
I also added some parsley - just in case. I love tithonia, but I don't have any. This is on my list of annuals to grow from seed next year. Here we are in the middle of summer, and I am looking forward to next year!
I was wondering today about fertilizing my garden. I switched just this spring away from chemicals after reading alot of the information on the organic thread. I have been using alfalfa tea, and a combination fish emulsion/kelp fertilizer. Hopefully, this wont pose any problems to the butterflies. I was actually trying to spray the plants today that the larger butterflies weren't on. There are so many little brown and white ones that I couldn't avoid them. None of them seemed too concerned, but I just want to get someone else's opinion.
Here's the gang today hanging out.
pennefeather... from one Virginian to another... you have a beautiful garden! I've been enjoying your photos and essay.
tobasco... the movie you refer to... "The Blue Butterfly"... is excellent! I own it myself. It is a true story about the young boy portrayed in the movie, with an interview with the "real" young man at the end. I would highly recommend it to anyone, and all ages!
I hope everyone is having a blessed weekend.
Karen
Karen and Judy - What is this movie? I've not heard about it? Is it an animated film or a documentary or what? Do the movie rental places carry it or is this an educational film? Ya got my attention about this film!
becky--the details for "The Blue Butterfly" are in the link I posted above. I rented mine from Netflix. It was in the theatres, too. http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Blue_Butterfly/70040679
thanks, penne, you are very creative yourself and well on your way to having the best BF garden around, I am sure. I'm sure you can squeeze in those A. curassavica, especially. They are well loved by the monarchs and pretty, too. (Annuals for us, though, so save some seed pods).
I love to share my butterfly experience with anyone I can lasso into my yard, especially the neighbor kids and my little nieces and nephews. And I find creating a "theme" (like butterflies) and following through with a variety of learning experiences that use different ways of learning--tactile, auditory, visual, interpersonal--and tools--movies, gardening, drawing, talking, stories, tagging butterflies--- puts new interests/ideas/knowledge into context for kids (they used to call it 'learning across the curriculuum'--now I don't know what they call it...) and cements the knowledge into their brains. I don't know, I'm not a teacher, but I did work with the Children's Museum in Pasadena on a number of learning concepts (mostly from Howard Gardner's research on multiple intelligences http://www.pz.harvard.edu/PIs/HG.htm ) and that's where I get ideas...and 'google', too, of course! LOL
My own kids are now in their twenties (and home for the summer) and have caught the butterfly fever (somewhat) for twenty-somethings, anyway...I can't get them to color butterly pictures anymore but they did watch "The Blue Butterfly"! And we all talk at the dinner table about butterflies (which amazes me).
I don't know much about fertilizing. I am still using diluted (1/2 strength) Miracle Grow for Blooms when the garden looks dull. When I can, I use natural concoctions--alfalfa tea and different mixtures-- I wouldn't think the Tea would be harmful to the BFs....I suppose a simple fertilizer down on the roots of the plants would be best for the BFs if they are hiding on the leaves, etc.
This message was edited Jul 29, 2007 9:02 AM
