To the left of the previous picture. By the way, the giant Zebra Longwing up on the building is motorized so the wings flap. I told Dad I totally want to put one on our house. I wonder if the neighbors (or code enforcement) would mind...
Butterfly and Hummingbird Gardens
This is our little water feature...
We grow our bacopa in the water here.
Why bacopa? Because it's the host plant for the White Peacock!
This is behind the building where we have a little trail through the butterfly garden.
As you can see from the cars behind the plants, this is what people from the parking lot walk up to first. I heard so many little kids today walking up and saying, "Look! A butterfly exhibit!" That made me happy.
I like to call this area our "Milkweed Forest". As you can see, we've been logging pretty heavily over the last few weeks.
This is the backside of the flight cage. It's basically like a screened in porch inside a screened in porch. The flight cage where the butterflies fly freely is fairly small - like a large patio. Then, around it we have a man-made wetland where we demonstrate how wetlands clean and filter water. There's a little stream where we have water plants growing along with native turtles as well as non-native red-eared sliders, koi, tilapia, and mollies. We try to tell people about the importance of not dumping your unwanted pets into Florida's habitat. So many people ask if we've fed the turtles and I'm always explaining how they used to be pets so they're used to being fed by humans. They have plenty to eat and we adopted them so some idiot wouldn't dump them in the Hillsborough River.
Here's one of those Red-Eared Sliders. I think it's now illegal to sell them in Florida. They used to sell them at kiosks in the mall. Then, they'd get too big or the parents would learn how they carry salmonella and then they'd dump them outside. My boss was telling me how the sliders will out-compete our native turtles for food so it's really a bad idea to release them.
This is our brand new shed my boss is very excited about; next to it you can see our awesome rain barrels with butterly decorations. Since we believe in reforestation, all those pots you see are filled with milkweed.
Now to my garden! This is the front of my house and yup, that's my Beetle. As you can see, I have lots of plumbagos. Dad likes them because they're low maintenance and they match the house. They're a great Swallowtail attractor and they host the Cassius Blue butterfly. That's a cassia coming up behind them, and I recently planted some purple porterweed back there. The shepard's hook has a couple of my bromeliads hanging off it.
Well, you can see my front door there. That window is Mom's home office (she works tech support and is on the phone all day). I recently replanted the area with butterfly plants so she can enjoy watching them while she works. That's bougainvillea on the trellis and the big thing is a plumeria. There's several kinds of sage, verbena, cat's whiskers, pentas, veronica, and cleome in there. My favorite is the purple flower all the way to the left. It's Tampa Verbena (glandularis tampensis) and it's an endangered species! I always tell the butterflies they should feel special when they nectar on it. On the other side of the doorway is where the porterweed is planted. That's where Mom watches the hummingbirds and butterflies fight over it all day long.
And here's the other side of the house. More plumbagos, and I have porterweed, pentas, and sage planted underneath them. There's another cassia coming up behind the plumbagos. You can see my droopy milkweed; behind it I have firebush, black and blue salvia, and fennel and dill. They're still small as I only recently planted them. We had ligustrums there before but I got Dad to rip them out. I can't wait until the firebushes get bigger. Zebra Longwings love them immensely. I'm hoping the hummingbirds will like them, too.
Great pics mellielong! (dreaming of FL...........) yes I would love to hang that motorized BF! Cute turtle, too.
OK, I finished this baby garden yesterday. It is about 4x4, its where the old dog house used to be. Bee balm, impatiens, madevilla trellis, mint and wild clemetis. Just have to mulch it. First pic.
Second
And the last. GM
Mellie, Wow Look at all the great pictures!
I love the black metal butterfly! I want one for my house lol. Oh the second one has flapping wings! That’s even better! All the gardens look very nice.
Wow look at all the milkweed stems! I hope that’s what my milkweeds look like soon lol.
Your house is very pretty and I agree with your dad that the plumbagos do look great.
Your mom must love being able to watch the butterflies and hummers while she’s working, I know I would.
I have family in Naples and the next time I can get down there I am putting the MOSI on my day trip list. It looks like a wonderful place to visit. : )
Grandmaggie, Great new garden, I love the color of the beebalm, very pretty. Do mandevillas attract hummingbirds? I have one my DH gave me for my B-day. I wasn't sure if it would attract wildlife here, but it is so pretty I loved it anyway.
The funny thing is two days ago I walked over near it while working in the garden - a hummer started doing a crazy dive bomb performance right next to me. I think he was trying to scare me off! I just watched in amazement and kinda chuckled when he was done. It was quite a sight! I was thinking he was guarding the mandevilla because it was right when I went near it that he started his antics. I wasn't sure though, because I"ve never seen them at it.
Meredith, I had the mandevilla also last year. The hummies would come and inspect it a lot. So I left it were it was and put the other flowers in this year. Not too much hummer action yet, it will pick up soon I hope! GM
Meredith, glad you liked the photos! If you're going to be in Naples I'm sure you visit the Selby gardens. Oh, and USF is across the street from MOSI so you could check out their botanical gardens, too. They have a very nice butterfly garden. Here's their website: http://www.cas.usf.edu/garden/
Mandevilla is a very popular vine in this area although I don't have one. I could see how they would attract the hummingbirds though. I had a similar experience walking out the door the other day and having a hummingbird do circles around my head. He was guarding the porterweed in my case.
Melanie
I just have to add a link to an absolutely beautiful garden Shadowjack has been creating. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/874133/ I can't say enough how wonderful it has turned out!
Yes, I checked it out before, it's beautiful!!! GM
I finally took some photos of our new and improved flower beds. This one is our "rock" garden. All the plants are new this spring.
I didn't expect anything to bloom this year but this is a red penstemon that pleasantly surprised me. There is another one next to it showing buds and one farther away sticking a stem up.
These are Keys of Heaven on the other side of the rocks.
This is our "pump" garden. The house in the background is my nearest neighbor.
Pump garden looking toward our house. No, the pump doesn't work. We have to carry water out there.
My bad. Wrong photo.
This message was edited Jul 12, 2008 3:18 PM
This is a closer view of the pump garden, north side. Two years ago a large Chinese elm stood here. We mulled it over and decided to put in a flower garden this spring. All the plants are new. Lower right are two Gingerale heucheras. To the left of them is a Tiramisu hewq. Three or four, of six, Butterfly weeds can be seen near the pump base. In the top left corner is an Endless Summer hydrangea.
A view of the pump garden from the other side. If you look long enough you can see the third Gingerale and second Tiramisu hewqs along with the remaining Butterfly weeds and both ES hydrangeas. Next year I'm hoping the hydrangeas will be dark blue and the BF weed a bright orange to honor my Chicago Bears and U of I football teams.
For lack of a better name we call this one our "Pole" garden. The Allium was planted three years ago. The two in the center are Shasta daisies and new this spring. They were almost ready to open their blooms when the stems gave way and toppled the blooms.
This one we call the "Oak" garden. In this spot stood the only oak tree on the place. We took it down five years ago in fear of the wind blowing it over. The center was rotted anyway. The Allium are three years old. The Coreopsis "Tickseed" new this spring as well as the two plants in the lower front (that I don't remember the name of off-hand).
I think we call this one "South" garden. Or "Patio" garden. It's south of the patio but not our southernmost garden. The pink cheddars are where a tree stump used to be. I've enlarged the area this year and it's still a work in progress. In the background is our only rose bush.
These are Coreopsis "Limerock Dream". We enjoy the color. There will be a blue flowering plant on the right side next year. The fence was put up to keep the dogs from marking the plants. They are mine not theirs.
This is the photo showing the Pump garden from the other side with our house in the background.
GK, Wow it looks like you've been busy working on your new beds! Have you had any butterflies visit them yet?
I saw a butterfly flit past the window one afternoon but haven't seen any more. I saw a cat on one of my dill plants. It was about an inch long, thick as a cooked spaghetti noodle, green with black stripes between segments. I didn't take a picture. I was too busy keeping Judy from spraying it with Sevin. *grin* No hummingbirds yet.
There's still time. I'm looking forward to next year when my beds start looking established.
Did your caterpillar look like a black swallowtail? Here is a picture of one on some Rue in my yard.
I think it was that one, Meredith. I looked up black swallowtail in Bug Files and that definitely wasn't the one that flitted by my window. The BF had coloring I associate with Monarchs.
That was probably a Fritillary : ) I see those a lot this time of year. Sometimes the larger Fritillaries look like a Monarch when they fly by real quick. The Great Spangled Fritallary is the biggest around here, they are almost as large as MOnarchs. I haven't seen any yet this year. I've just started seeing Frits this past couple of weeks. Here is one I got a picture of, I think it's a Meadow Fritillary.
After I posted I thought ...... Maybe you saw a viceroy. They look a lot like a Monarch except they are easy to tell the difference because the Viceroy are much smaller than Monarchs. Their colors are identical though!
Here's a picture that shows some of the blooms now - in my main bf / hb garden. That's the same Frit as in the previous picture. It's easy to tell when the same bf returns more than one day, at least when they are as battered as this guy. He's been here every day since the 11th : )
The red monarda are guarded by the resident hummingbird. Just this evening I watched him do one of those dive bomb performances over the garden. Lol they are so funny to watch when they do that. I have no idea who or what he was trying to scare off!
It seems the fritillaries like these purple beebalm in the picture more than other bf's. Last year they were a buzz with tons of bf's every sunny day, but not this year so far. Butterfly visits to the garden are not as often as I'd like, especially when I see them flying through the yard every day and not stopping in! Their nerve - lol!
This message was edited Jul 14, 2008 11:29 PM
