Greetings
Even though I am 3 years into this project, It is still a hodgepodge of Perennials and a few Annuals. But little to tie them together.
I started this Butterfly Garden for my mother who is disabled and can not walk on un even ground, the idea being a nice winding brick path through a scenic Butterfly garden.
Given the size of area I am playing with, purchasing new plants has gotten expensive, but I am not proficient at growing from seeds yet, does anyone have advice for me?
The Milkweeds ( Asclepias and others ) has eluded me these past 3 years......none of locals carry them.
I have at present many different nectar plants, but always have room to add more, and plan on putting in more herb host plants this year as well. Is there a lot of benefit to putting in Host trees such as Cherry or wild cherry.......I have room for maybe one or 2 trees.
Any help will be appreciated....
Tim
Zone 5 Butterfly Garden Needs Advice From any and all!
Hi, SJ, Welcome to Dave's Garden--and it sounds like you have a very interesting butterfly project underway! We will all want to follow along on your progress!
One suggestion I have for your butterfly garden (besides the milkweed growing suggestions in my d-mail to you) is to sow some seeds for Zinnias, particulary old fashioned types that aren't so full (doubled). I like to start my zinnia seeds in a covered plastic box and then transplant to the garden when they have a couple of sets of leaves. Many gardeners start the seeds right in the garden, particularly if they don't have trouble with birds scavenging for them or heavy rains to wash them away (that's why I don't start them out in the garden). Zinnias are available on almost any seed rack--I plant Benary Giants and Zowies, but others are very good too. If you plant the seeds in covered and vented boxes using some miracle gro potting mix (or another favorite potting mix) you can start them right now. If you plant the seeds right into the garden you will have to wait until the soil warms up and frosts are over (May or June). Check the back of the seed packets for more details.
The next suggestion I have is to grow two or three tithonia (mexican sunflowers) in the back of your border. They are tall (up to 6 feet), large, and rangey daisy looking flowers but our monarchs and swallowtails up north love them. So do the hummingbirds. Start the seeds the same way you start Zinnias, either in a plastic vented box outdoors now, or later right in the flower border.
The third 'easy to grow from seed' plant for the butterfly border is Verbena bonarienses. It is easily started from seed (same as above) and will easily reseed next year once you get a few plants going.
About your tree question, we have so many trees in our neighborhood, it's difficult to suggest one or two that would be particularly useful for a butterfly garden. Wild cherries are always mentioned as good host and nectar plants in northern zones. So are dogwoods, ashes, apples and many others.
Vines and climbers are also attractive to butterflies and some are easy to start from seed. Climbing nasturtiums are easy from seed and popular for hanging baskets, so are bush morning glories. Hops vines, aristolachias (dutchman's pipe) and maypops are attractive to some butterflies and will cover an ugly fence or out-house rather nicely. Be careful with these, though. They can be invasive.
If you want to mind your gardening budget and derive some delightful satisfaction from your gardening, I suggest you check out the "Wintersowing Forum" to learn about an easy and little fuss way to start seeds. In your zone April is not too late to still put out a few containers of seeds and you will have a full garden for almost no dollars by July. And loads of butterfly visitors.
If you need seeds for any of the above, I suggest you ask (sweetly/politely) on the seed trading forum. Often there are milkweeds, verbena bonarienses and zinnia seeds available for SASE. I'm all out of these seeds right now, but others on this forum may have them readily available too. (and cuttings for milkweed, too, by the way.)
Good luck with your project and let us know what you are up to. We are always interested in new butterfliers. t.
Here are two good webpages from MonarchWatch about basic butterfly (especially Monarch) nectar flower germination and growing:
http://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/seed_kit.html
http://www.monarchwatch.org/milkweed/prop.htm
Oh, and I forgot to mention above if you like to host swallowtails, plant some parsley and dill seeds around your garden. They will lay eggs on these and other members of the parsley plant family, too.
Thank you so much for all of this information. I will go ahead and purchase some seeds of the above and not bother anyone as I don't have anything to trade this season.......You say that starting them indoors is easy?....I will give it a go and see what happens. I looked up the plants you suuggested and think they are great and have perfect areas for them. At present I am replacing my chain link fence with a wooden privacy for a wind break as well.......it runs north and south, so the plants still get full sun. I will post photos as things come along.....Thanks again, it's exciting to get assistance in this from people that are already deft in this passionate hobby....
TJ
SJ,
Have a look at this website for info on an easy low fuss way to learn to grow seeds outdoors: http://wintersown.org/wseo1/FAQs.html
In your zone it's still cool enough and you can still do this if you start this week or so. I am a klutz about growing from seed, but I can do it the Wintersown way. You can do zinnias and tithonia this way and it's so easy.
If you get going on seed sowing for the butterflies, let us know on the Butterfly forum or post on the Wintersowing forum on DG if you have questions.
I'm sure Tab already gave you great info but I can share my thoughts on milkweeds. The two easiest Milkweeds to grow from seed are A. curassivica http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/604/ (this would be annual for you) and A. tuberosa http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/73/ . I also have found swamp milkweed http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/539/ easy, but I just tossed the seed out in an empty bed, I didn't try growing it indoors. I ended up getting at least a dozen plants sowing it directly in the garden. I probably threw about 300 seeds out there though. I am pretty sure those need a cold stratification period to grow from seed, unlike the first two which germinate at room temps.. I wintersowed some A. purpurascens http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/81058/ last year and ended up with 3 seedlings in the garden. Not very good odds on those, cosidering I put hal the pack in the ws container. So you may not want to try those. Be very wary of the common milkweed http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/40130/, they send out runners underground and are impossible to get rid of without tearing up every inch of dirt. They didn't die after I sprayed them with an organic herbicide either. I don't mind them growing in most parts of my yard but it seems they prefer to grow right along my front entry path, which is the only area I try to keep neat and traditional. Their darn runners go under the concrete slab (so you can't get them all) and even grow out the area that is cracked from settling, so you can see why I wouldn't want them there! ;) Although the Monarchs here seem to be most attracted to them.
There are lots of online resources for milkweed if you absolutely can't try seeds. Just look at the vendor links from the plantfile pages and you should find reputable places that way.
Picture is of scarlet milkweed I grew from seed last year. (These are practically impossible to kill, my leftover seedlings were left to die in the flats and still struggled on!)
Well I went out and bought a veritable smorgasbord of seed packs today, ranging from herb host plants, to flowers , Aslepias Tuberosa being one and the Tinthonia being another and still didn't spend what I would have on 2 or 3 plants......I think I have 20 packets. Now I saved my reciepts because I have another pertinent question.....Are seed packets all the same? Is there a difference in companies and are the ones at Menards and so forth of quality? I see all of these sites selling seeds and wonder if any are better than others. If this is the case, i will return these and do mail order. The last thing i want to do is put forth effort for no apparent reason.
And thank you Meredith for your help....
SJ, some say there is a difference in quality of seeds offered by the different companies--and there are pages of threads with hundreds of different opinions on the question, if you want to do a search-- but if you are a home grower and just trying out seed sowing for the first time, I'm sure the seeds you picked out will give you good enough germination. Menards offers quality seed from well-known companies and it's fresh this year, so you should be just fine for this year. As you become proficient at seed sowing you will probably get very picky, but Menard's products are a good start.
Now if you give us the names of what you bought, or better yet, post your list on the Propagation or Wintersowing Forums, I'm sure you will get good and quick advice on how to start them. If you want to start your seeds indoors check out the Propagation forum. If you want to do the Wintersowing method look up the link above or the DG forum is good too.
I will post the list and as far as what method....would it be wrong to split the seeds and try both? to see what one I get better results from?
Sure, you can split the seeds and try both methods if you want to--often people do that for succession sowing, too. Or they save some back for next year. Hardly anyone needs all the plants from a pack of seeds at once.
So seed packets arfe good for more than one year then?
Most seeds are good for more than one season. Especially if you keep them in a cool dark box or even in the fridge if you have a hot house.
There are a few kinds of seed that germinate best when fresh--I can't think of the names of them now, but folks on the Propagation forum will have that info on the tips of their fingers.