Host Plants and Hope


Yesterday, I took my first direct move to help create life in my new landscape. I planted a Bahama cassia (Senna mexicana var. chapmanii) to serve as a larval host plant for three species of sulfur butterflies - cloudless, orange-barred, and sleepy orange, native to my area. It is not enough to simply provide nectar plants to attract the adults. The real goal of a living landscape is to provide for their reproduction. Attracting wildlife is not enough; we must produce it within our landscapes. With butterflies, that means planting their host plants and not worrying over much about the nectar ones.
Butterfly gardening is the most straight forward form of landscaping for wildlife. It is also the one likeliest to produce the quickest response. While creating songbird habitat can take a decade or more to reach its potential, butterflies can arrive the day your landscape is planted. Of course, that depends on the butterfly and on how close the nearest population is to your landscape.
Just about every butterfly book lists the larval host plants for each butterfly. It is a simple process to:
1. Identify which butterflies you're most interested in landscaping for
2. Identify what the larval host plant(s) is/are for each
3. Confirm that each butterfly is native to your locale
4. Locate a seed or plant source within your region that can sell you the plants you want

In my new locale, nestled within an ecological desert, I know what I've been able to landscape for in the past, but no idea how likely it will be to get them to find my new plantings. I saw a cloudless sulfur flying over my residential road about 3 weeks ago. It has been the only one I've seen in the nearly 4 months I've lived here, but sulfurs are great roamers and I have hope that they will one day find this Bahama cassia. Creating a true living landscape takes knowledge and patience, but it also incorporates hope.

Comments

  1. David Kyle RakesJanuary 20, 2019 at 2:58 PM

    I have a senna in my backyard but don't know what species it is, your blog now prompting me to find out. I'm glad to also be contributing to the sulfurs life cycle from egg to adult.
    I have also found that some deciduous plants are good roosting spots for the cloudless sulfur. Every year when the leaves turn yellow on my beautyberry bushes and a small bass tree, the cloudless sulfur's, sometimes as many as three or four, hang upside down from leaves that match the butterflies wings. I'm sure the sulfurs are roosting here for camouflage. Question is do the butterflies look at their own wings to decide if the color matches, or is it a color that is already preconceived in their minds?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hawthorn HillJanuary 24, 2019 at 6:57 PM

    Again, Kyle, thanks for weighing in .

    ReplyDelete

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