Tag: butterfly gardening

April 10: Two tons of mulch spread. And I got a spicebush!

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Everything hurts. My hands are blistered and cramped, as are my feet. My forearms could use a massage, and my whole body feels like it’s vibrating after two 8-hour days of shoveling, carting, dumping, and spreading mulch. But the front and back beds are done! All that’s left are a couple of small beds on the side of the house. I’m too pooped to do them today. Tomorrow.

Out of curiosity yesterday, I wondered if it were possible that I had moved a ton of mulch. I googled “how much does a cubic yard of mulch weigh” and got an estimate of 400-800 pounds depending on whether the mulch is wet. We bought 12 cubic yards in two dumptruck loads, and I’ve probably moved 10 yards in the past two days, so 4000 lbs. The mulch got drenched by heavy rain after it was delivered, so it was wet and on the heavier side, but I never know how much to trust the googles, so I’m just going to go really conservative and say it’s safe to say that yes, I moved a ton of mulch per day.

Pile 1 at beginning of Tuesday
Front bed mulching in progress
Back bed in progress on Tuesday
Pile 1 is shrinking
Back bed in progress
Pile 1 is almost gone
Pile 2 at beginning of Wednesday
Back bed in progress Wednesday
Pile 2 at end of day Wednesday

Everything looks so pretty 😍.

Before: front bed
After: front bed
Before: back bed
After: back bed

And nearly as exciting as the mulch? After three years of searching for a spicebush, I saw one at Crow’s Nest, my local nursery this week. By Monday, I had already been to the nursery nearly every day since I returned from my trip to Belgrade. When I plopped my plants on the counter at the cash register, the woman who always rings me up saw me, laughed, and said, “Maybe you should get a job here!” I told her I’d probably see her tomorrow, thinking “I won’t see her tomorrow, I’ve gotten everything I need.”

The shortest path to my car was through the shrub section, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the tiny yellow flowers of Lindera benzoin, the spicebush: host plant of the spicebush swallowtail and native shrub to our region. I didn’t buy it Monday but did go back on Tuesday, and was embarrassed to be there again for the fourth time in five days.

But now I have a spicebush! I’ve never seen one at the nursery before, and even asked about them the first year I was planning the garden. I thought I’d just not be able to get one and I gave up. And now I’ve got one! I’m so happy 🙂

spicebush
Spicebush, Lindera benzoin

Sep 3: end of summer in the garden means lots of caterpillars and chrysalises

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Monarch butterflies are emerging left and right in the garden. A couple of weeks ago on a rainy day, I started a new compost pile for my garden clippings. As I cleared out a space to put up wire fencing to contain the pile, I noticed what looked like an injured monarch on the ground. It was moving slowly and it’s wings didn’t look quite right.

A few minutes later I saw another slow-moving monarch on the ground. It’s wings were kind of shriveled and it looked like it was trying to dry them out. In the rain.

And then I realized: these two butterflies had just emerged from their chrysalises and were getting used to their new bodies before taking off for flight.

Since then, the monarch butterfly population has been on a steady increase. I see them soaring through the garden every day, sometimes only one butterfly at a time, sometimes multiple. I’ve been seeing tiger swallowtails as well, and eastern swallowtails, though not as many as monarchs.

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My office (and coworker) today. #butterfly #garden

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When I was out in the garden on Labor Day, I went to get the wheelbarrow to collect weeds in, and right before I flipped it over to roll it up the hill, I saw a chrysalis on it. Then I started looking around for chrysalises and I found several more.

Chrysalis on the veg patch fence
Chrysalis under deck
Chrysalis on extra bunny fencing under deck
Chrysalis on overturned wheelbarrow
Monarch caterpillar in the process of making a chrysalis
monarch empty chrysalis
Empty monarch chrysalis

The milkweed is looking pretty gnarly. This is the time of year I start getting antsy to tidy the garden, so I wanted to chop it down. Before cutting anything, I inspected for caterpillars, and the milkweed is crawling with them. So for now it stays. I need to think about where to move the plants next year so that when they get unsightly like this, I don’t have to look at them but the caterpillars can still enjoy them.

Monarch caterpillar munching
Fatty
More caterpillars
Monarch caterpillars on milkweed

 

August 11: so many flowers in the garden, especially sunflowers

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A goldfinch perched this morning on a purple coneflower head. This is one of my favorite things to see in the garden: these tiny bright golden birds swaying on the long stems of summer’s Echinacea.

The only problem with this scene is that, combined with the kids starting school next week, it reminds me that fall is coming soon. Which means winter will follow.

I don’t feel like I’ve recovered yet from last winter. I’m not ready for the garden to go to seed. I’m not ready for endless months of desiccated plants, without green and flowers. The Shasta daisies and Rudbeckia flowers are already starting to brown on the edges.

The good news is that the garden is full of butterflies and hummingbirds. I worked from my dogwood chair yesterday, with monarchs and swallowtails drifting all around me. When I approached the flowers where they drank, I was close enough to the many small moths and butterflies that I could hear their wings whir.

Other good news is that the garden is pretty much filled in as much as it’s going to this year, so I can get a good look at how to move things around and fill in next year.

tall sunflowers_0101
This is the first year I’ve planted sunflowers. I love them so much.
Sunflower face
Giant sunflower
That big one was supposed to be a dwarf
Sunflower bed 😍
Front lobe
Mailbox
Bird bath
front lobe_0116
Butterflies love the cleome, zinnias, and butterfly bush; bees love the salvia

I’m pretty happy with how the front beds turned out. They still need some help, but the area with the cleome, zinnias, and butterfly bush are a hot spot for all the fluttering insects I like to watch. I haven’t seen as many hummingbirds in the bed as I did last year, when I had bee balm out there, but they do sometimes visit the cleome and the zinnias.

Out back is a different story. I rarely look out back in the afternoon or evening without seeing a hummingbird. They particularly love the Mexican sunflower, but I’ve seen them at the cleome, zinnias, and even the nasturtiums as well.

back left beds_0095
Back left beds: hummingbirds love the tall orange flowers (Mexican Sunflower)

It’s hard to believe that last year that was all grass. I still have a lot I want to do with these beds — I want the far left bed to be mostly pinks and greens, with a little bit of soft purple. I’ll ditch the yellows and oranges. The Joe Pye weed, cleome, milkweed, rue, sedums, and ornamental grasses will stay, and I want to add some of the Northern Lights zinnias I have out front. I love their pink and purples, and zinnias are unanimously the favorite flower of our household. Everyone loves them.

middle back beds_0096
Lots going on here — needs some work

The middle beds out back definitely need some help. The lower bed on the left is currently a mix of silvery blue foliage and yellow-green pepper plants. We’re thinking about doing a raised bed for peppers next year, and then I can fill in that lower area with a small moon garden of silvery plants. Higher up the hill are the Mexican sunflowers, which I adore, but I don’t like where they are. I have other ideas for that bed to put some neater looking plants there, but I’m not sure where I’ll put the Mexican sunflowers next year if I do that.

far right back beds_0097
Far right beds

I’m meh about the bed with the Shasta daisies. I need to move some stuff around in there. The far right beds are pretty okay. Next year I’ll probably put in another Mexican sunflower on the far right, and I’m thinking about replacing the nasturtiums with a Persian Carpet blend of zinnia seeds, since we all love zinnias (as do the hummingbirds and butterflies), and when I asked our daughter which new type of zinnias she liked, she picked this one.

I’m going to keep soaking up the garden as much as I can before winter comes. August is the worst month for gardening, but it’s the best month for enjoying the butterflies and birds who come to harvest the abundant nectar and seeds.

 

July 18: sunflower, swallowtails, and monarch caterpillar

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I love July in the garden. The flowers still have fresh blooms, and the butterflies start showing up.

tiger swallowtail on butterfly bush
Eastern tiger swallowtail on Miss Ruby butterfly bush
eastern swallowtail
Eastern Tiger swallowtail

 

The caterpillars start showing up, too.

monarch caterpillar
Monarch caterpillar

 

This is the first year I’ve planted sunflower seeds. Most of the seedlings were decapitated by critters, probably bunnies. But I’ve got one that made it to bloom.

sunflower
My first sunflower 😍

July 15: summer blooms

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The garden is in full bloom, and a monarch came to visit the back garden beds today. My work killing lawn is paying off!

monarch milkweed echinacea 57
Monarch on milkweed
Monarch on Zinnia
Wind dancer grass and purple top verbena
Mexican sunflower
Monarch on butterfly weed
Back bed from side
Echinacea
Back left beds
Cleome in back bed
Cabbabe white butterfly on purple top verbena
Bumblebee on echinacea
Back center beds
Shastas and liatris
cleome jul 7 _35
Cleome
lambs ear 65
Lamb’s ears
shasta daisy 44
Shasta daisy
back beds from side 44
The back beds are filling in

The front is starting to fill in as well.

liatris and sedum 15
Autumn joy sedum and liatris
Front bed
Shasta daisies
Bachelor button
Front beds
Zinnias out front
Dill out front
Front bed from chair
front cleome zinnias bird bath and butterfly bush 22
Cleome, Miss Ruby butterfly bush, and bird bath
front lobe from back 17
Front bed from behind
bumblebees on lavender 014
Bumblebee on lavender

July 7: flowers in the garden!

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I need to get out my real camera, but in case I don’t get a chance to do that before the flowers pass, I wanted to capture where the blooms are right now. I’m enjoying watching everything fill in. I’ve got my fingers crossed that next year, when everything is a bit more established, it will begin to fill in more.

The bees, small butterflies, and hummingbirds were out in full force yesterday. Still not seeing many of the larger butterflies yet, though — the monarchs and swallowtails. I remember having to wait a long time for them last year as well.

We’ve got two bird feeders out back, which we love to watch. Birds are super active in the newly planted back hill, including ground birds like doves and robins. With the higher bird population, I fear for the poor caterpillars out there. Rue is generally covered in swallowtail caterpillars, and I’ve only seen one so far this year. I’m hoping with the variety and number of plants out there, they’ll be able to find some shelter and at least grow up to become butterflies.

zinnias, liatris, bird bath
Zinnias, liatris, lemon balm, bird bath
View to left from chair: phlox
View to right from chair: hostas
Most of front beds
Storm coming
Rose bed
Mailbox – needs love
White cone flowers
Liatris (gayfeather/blazing star)
Pink zinnia out front
Shasta daisies “Becky”
Filled in a bit since June 18
Still filling in
Back hill

 

June 3: front bed do-over. Thanks deer. Also, ornamental grasses 😍.

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Deer munched all my New England asters and the blue wheat I was growing in the bed in front of our house. It’s the most important bed, being the one that leads up to our front door.

This weekend I bought a bunch of stuff to re-do it. I moved the asters into the middle of the bed, behind a barrier of lavender and nepeta (catmint), which I hear deer don’t like the smell of. I’m sure they’ll just step all over everything and eat the asters anyway, so I took some photos in case this is the one day it looks okay. Although, if it survives our neighborhood herd of deer, it will look much better when everything fills in.

sunflowers and cone flowers_0017
New plants in front, including Switchgrass, sunflower,white coneflower, Russian sage, lavender, catmint
White coneflower
Newly planted front bed
Sunflower with yarrow in foreground
New plantings
Cleome
Dianthus
Rose bed
Waiting for flowers

I’ve also gone crazy for ornamental grasses this year. Look how pretty!

mexican grass
Mexican feather grass in late afternoon sun
blue grama grass
Flowers of blue grama grass

On Saturday, while our daughter was at swim practice, I went to Lowe’s to find the Eragrostis elliotti ‘Wind Dancer Lovegrass’ that I had seen last weekend, before my June garden budget was funded. At the time it was still May, and I saw these gorgeous, graceful grasses shoved on the bottom shelf of a rolling rack. They looked like they were waiting to be put out on the ornamental grasses display. I had never seen them or heard of them before, and a quick search told me not only are they not invasive, they’re native. I took pictures of the tags so I could come back for them on June 1.

When I went to Lowe’s on Saturday, the rack was gone, and the grasses were not on display. My heart fell because these grasses were exactly what I wanted. They’d go in a windy spot, and they’d dance in the breeze that is constantly blowing. I walked every aisle three times before I gave up.

Since I had nothing to purchase, I checked the discount rack — all the plants they forgot to water or that look too imperfect to get full price for. And on the $5 rack, there were my grasses! At full price I would have only been able to buy two.

I bought four.

lollipop vervain and grass
Wind Dancer grass behind lollipop vervain

I sit on the back deck now and watch them wave in the wind. Hopefully I can save them from the near death they were experiencing at Lowes in their too-small pots.

I’m really happy with how the back hill is coming along.

White gaura
Wind dancer grasses from top of hill
Starting to fill in
blueberries
My new favorite grass
Wind dancer grasses on back hill
Path to the compost

May 23: planted a few things

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After two years of unsuccessfully growing cleome from seed, I found some cleome annuals at the nursery! I also planted:

  • 1 superbena Royale Chambray verbena (back hill)
  • 1 white guara ‘Whirling butterflies’ (back hill)
  • 2 lemonade lantana (back hill)
  • 2 dwarf agastache (back hill)
  • 2 Jr. Walker cat mints (rose bed)
  • 4 jalepeños
  • 1 Giant Thai pepper
  • 1 Habañero pepper
  • 1 Mariachi pepper
Verbena, catmint, and white gaura
Agastache
Scabiosa and salvia on back hill

May 6: all the seeds are sown

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I’ve been simultaneously eager about and dreading the final round of seed-sowing. Seeds are a lot of work, and while I want the seeds to be in the ground and the plants to be grown and flowering, I didn’t want to have to put the seeds — all the many scores of them — in the earth myself.

But I did. What cost us $50 in seeds will give us an enormous number of plants that probably would cost $300-$400 to buy them fully formed at a nursery.  The past two days I did a ton of tiny things in the garden that are currently invisible — I sowed seeds directly in the flower beds:

I also did the equally unexciting job of transplanting seedlings that I started indoors several weeks ago:

And, because all of those things require tons of waiting, and I want instant gratification, I took a trip to the nursery. Actually, I think I went to the nursery every day — Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I got caught in a spring shower there yesterday, which was fun. The plants look so pretty in the rain.

spring storm at crow's nest
Spring shower at Crow’s Nest nursery in Blacksburg, VA

In addition to the seeds I sowed, and the seedlings I transplanted, I also bought some already flowering plants (and an ornamental grass I’ve been waiting for) and put them in the ground:

  • Lollipop vervain
  • Straw flowers
  • Purple Haze Nepeta
  • Nepeta Junior Walker
  • Muhly grass
  • Dwarf hummingbird mint (agastache)

As far as everything else going on in the garden, the indigo Salvia is in bloom — the first of the perennials to flower — and our buttery snapdragons look adorable against the blue. The yarrow has fat flower buds now, and the new veronica I bought a few weeks ago is starting flower spikes as well.

All the perennials I moved from the front to the back hill beds seem to be surviving, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they continue to survive and thrive out there. I spend a lot of time now sitting on the table on our back deck so I can watch the garden grow, and watch the birds at the bird feeder. We saw an indigo bunting yesterday! It was a gorgeous deep teal, almost a peacock-blue color, but a little less green.

The hardest work is done now: killing the grass, mulching more than 2000 square feet of flower beds, digging in rocky soil, transplanting dozens of plants, nursing seeds for weeks indoors before moving them outside, prepping the earth to sow seeds, actually sowing seeds in.

I’ve only got a few more things left to do (besides the constant weeding) — a few more transplants, starting some basil seeds. I think my gardening from here on out will primarily consist of maintenance, watching things grow, and enjoying it :-).

Here are some photos from early May. I always like to compare later in the season — it looks so bare now compared to how it’s likely going to look in July.

Back bed: dark patches are newly sown seeds
Front bed with dwarf sunflower seeds sown
Under the dogwood
Rows of dwarf zinnia seeds
Herb bed early May