Plant It, But They Might Still Not Come

Caterpillar of common buckeye
Southern dogface sulfur


 
Phaon crescent
I have spent a lot of time and energy planting my landscape to provide for pollinators. Some, like the bees and pollinating wasps are now a diverse part of my pollinating fauna, but I am still awaiting quite a few of the butterflies. I am always excited to see one using my landscape, but only a few have become firmly established by laying eggs and multiplying.  A lot is written these days about monarchs and I am sensitive to their significant drop in population numbers, but I worry a bit more about all the others that seem to be below everyone's radar these days. So many are simply not as charismatic as a monarch and few are as large and showy. In my mind, it stands to reason that if one butterfly is suffering from the widespread use of pesticides and loss of host plants with which to raise its offspring, the same must be true for a great many others.

My bible for Florida butterflies and what to plant here is the superbly written/illustrated book Florida Butterfly Caterpillars by Marc Minno, Jerry Butler, and Donald Hall. It has always directed me in choosing appropriate host plants for the butterflies present in my part of the state. Since my arrival here in my new home, I have added as many as I could and some of them are being fed upon as I planned. The water bacopa (Bacopa monnieri) has received the attention of white peacocks, the water dropwort (Tiedemannia filiformis) and mock bishopweed (Ptilimnium capillaceum) have helped raise eastern black swallowtails and my various sennas have seen their share of cloudless and orange-barred sulfurs.  Monarchs are provided for and they are nearly ever-present. Recently, I found a common buckeye caterpillar on my wild petunia (Ruellia caroliniensis), but search as I might, I have not found a second or seen adults looking to lay eggs. I am hoping it was not an aberrant occurrence, but the start of something bigger. One never knows. Here in my suburban desert, it is not always possible to lure butterflies to my island oasis.  You can plant what they need, but they still have to cross vast areas to find you. That's asking a lot - especially in these days and times.

My backyard has extensive areas of fogfruit (Phyla nodiflora), but I have yet to see my first phaon crescent. The same is true for its close cousin - the pearl crescent which uses asters (Symphyotrichum spp.). I have planted all three native species of leadplants (Amorpha spp.), but there have been no southern dogface sulfurs here in the nearly 4 years that I've been at it. My skipper population has been extremely scanty despite all of the plantings I have made for them.  It takes patience to see my woodland develop to the extent that it might provide for migratory songbirds, but I'm finding that it takes nearly as much to get many of the butterflies that I have purposely planted for. Patience and the hope that their populations also are not in peril with no one paying much attention. Creating a living landscape is not about ensuring the health of one or two species. It's about creating conditions for life itself in all forms.

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