My Butterfly Garden is growing a bit more each year. The focal points are the butterfly bushes. These plants have large flowers that are similar to lilacs, but they bloom from late spring upto frost if you keep up on the deadheading. A total of 8 bushes are scattered about the back protion of the yard. Two of which, after 4 years, are now large bushes and get lots of comments from passers by. These two have blooms of pink, purple and white, all on the same plant. Four new plants have seeded from my older bushes and will bloom well this year. I plant parsley near the base of the largest plants, to give the butterflies a place to lay eggs and something for the larva to eat. Each year more butterfly species arrive to feast on the blooms, and I even have humming birds now! This is quite
an accomplishment to me since I live in the heart of the city, very near
a busy freeway. This year I will add some bushes that grow large white trumpet shaped flowers and a ton of cosmos, wild flowers, plus maybe some bee balm and anything else that suits my fancy! A good butterfly garden will have a slightly unkept look, a few scattered weeds and resting stones placed in the sunshine for the insects to warm themselves.
Late last summer I had about 15 Monarch's searching my garden, early one sunny morning. I thought some of the feeding insescts were dead flowers I had missed the day before, when I was trimming dead heads.
LINK FOR MORE ON BUTTERFLIES AND THEIR GARDENS |
