Butterflies Are Not Free - They Take Some Work

White peacock on Coreopsis

Cloudless sulfur

Monarch on Sky blue Salvia
With all the attention (deservedly so, I might add) on bees and pollinator gardens these days, the plight of butterflies seems to be taking a back seat. I regret that as butterflies are not just beautiful creatures, they are an integral part of any well-designed pollinator garden. Bees are integrally tied to native wildflowers for their nectar needs and different species require different habitat conditions to produce their offspring. Butterflies are no different except they also need host plants for their caterpillars. That requires us to not only provide the proper nectar plants, but to add their host plants as well and that takes some planning. Butterflies are not a "freebie" that simply comes about by planting a pollinator garden.
A few common lawn weeds serve that purpose for a few species, but to do things right means we have to also purposely add the plants that don't just pop up in a neglected former lawn. As I plant my new landscape here in Holiday, I am especially cognizant of what I need to add - and it is paying off. When I first moved here, there were precious few butterflies in my landscape. It was a rare occasion to have one fly by and an even rarer one to have one of them linger. I've learned over the past years to appreciate the diversity of native bees present in the world around me, but I've loved butterflies for as long as I've been alive. I don't know of anyone that isn't drawn to them.
Butterfly host plants range from trees and shrubs to grasses and wildflowers. To minimize competition for the leaves of their host plants, they are extremely selective about what they will lay their eggs on. This, of course, makes it easy to decide what to plant. You simply choose the butterflies you wish to have near you and plant their host plant. This takes planning and a bit of work. It doesn't happen by chance or by simply letting an area of your landscape go "wild."
Today, as I sat a while in my developing yard, I was witness to a bit of what I've accomplished. A white peacock fluttered near the ground, resting on various plants and seemingly not interested in laying eggs on the bacopa (Bacopa monnieri) I've planted in my wetland. They did, however, last year. A monarch hovered among the flowers in my backyard, nectaring a bit on my red salvia (Salvia coccinea) waiting for the reappearance of the milkweeds I've added. A tiny cassius blue seems to have taken up residence and an orange-barred sulfur laid eggs on my privet cassia (Senna ligustrina). Yesterday, a giant swallowtail did the same on my key lime. Gulf fritillaries are a common visitor as my winged maypop (Passiflora suberosa) are actively growing and providing new shoots for their caterpillars.
Throughput my yard, front and back, are larval host plants for butterflies. There is no better way to attract them to your landscape. They are not nearly as interested in the pollen and nectar produced  by my wildflowers as they are in the plants their caterpillars require. Many of my host plants have not yet served that purpose, but I am patient. I have yet to get some of the grass skippers that I hope will use my native bluestems and Indiangrasses and I have not yet seen the crescents that should lay their eggs on my asters. I have several species of pawpaws in case a zebra swallowtail decides to visit. If you plant it, however, they may come.
A landscape full of butterflies is a goal I wish to eventually attain. Today was a good day because it would seem that I'm on my way. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ethics of Collecting Seed

Image
I've been writing lately about seeds and using them to create what is often called a pollinator meadow. A great many of the plants in my new landscape were grown from seed. Frankly, I have always loved sowing seeds and watching them sprout. I started in early childhood and I've been doing it since. It's rewarding and the anticipation of waiting for seeds to sprout is difficult to match unless you play the lottery. I rarely purchase seeds. I collect them. When I can, I purchase a few plants of a species I wish to add to my landscape and I then collect their seed after they bloom. If a plant doesn't prosper sufficiently to set seed for me, it is not a plant I wish to continue to grow. Over the years, I've tried a great many plants that I've failed to adequately provide for. Today in my landscape, I'm trying a few that I've never tried before. The exceptions come from plants that are not available in the trade. To grow these from seed, I need to collect ...
Read more

Wildflower Meadows - The Importance of Grasses

Image
A Natural Wildflower "Meadow" - Apalachicola National Forest I grew up in the prairie Midwest and was fortunate to have been caught up in the prairie restoration movement that blazed brightly in the last few decades of this past century. Very little of our original prairie ecosystems remain as the rich prairie soils were quickly converted to agricultural uses as European settlers swarmed their way over the continent.  These ecosystems are extremely diverse, regardless of where they occur. From the tall-grass prairies of the Midwest to the rockland prairies of the Mid-South and the true dry prairie systems here in Florida where I now reside, there are several universal characteristics - they are some of the most species diverse systems in the world and they are dominated by grasses. Grasses, in all their many shapes and forms, are what form the foundation of any "meadow." That must also be true for all the "wildflower meadows" I see extolled on s...
Read more

A Pollinator Garden is More than Wildflowers

Image
A natural grass-dominated meadow in the shade Splitbeard bluestem - Andropogon ternarius Lopsided Indiangrass - Sorghastrum secundum Sites on social media that are promoting pollinator gardens are rife with posts about wildflowers. Folks seeking to make their landscapes pollinator friendly seem to be almost-universally focused on wildflowers. What these well-meaning people seem to not understand is the importance of native grasses. Meadows, prairies, and other wildflower-dominated systems are mostly grass. Grasses form the backbone of every one of these plant communities. It isn't the wildflowers. They simply provide most of the color - but a living landscape is not about color, it's about creating habitat, and this habitat requires us to incorporate native grasses. It is true that the vast majority of grasses, and their graminoid relatives, are wind pollinated. They do not provide nectar and pollen for the most part, but despite that they are significant. More s...
Read more