Gardens
Butterfly Garden
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As long as you are considering a vegetable garden, why not incorporate plants that will attract butterflies and other visitors? Bees, frogs, toads, snakes and other small creatures add diversity and beauty to any garden.
The best site for information about butterflies is the Monarch Watch at http://www.monarchwatch.org/, headed by Professor Chip Taylor.
The Monarch Butterfly Garden at the University of Kansas.
In late September, Ari noticed that birds swarmed around our milkweed plants. They were covered with monarch caterpillars.
This praying mantis ate one of the "cats."
We brought them inside, where they fed on milkweed, then changed into chrysalides.
When they were about to emerge, we placed them in butterfly "houses."
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Ari and one of the monarchs that metamorphosed in our house.
The monarchs loved the milkweed we placed in milk jugs.
The small pond provides homes for frogs, turtles, clams, a variety of insects and the plants supply food for butterflies. Tadpoles devoured the mosquito larvae.
Chip Taylor, Director of the KU Monarch Watch, came to our house to gather the swarm of bees who decided to settle on a tree branch in the backyard. They were docile and Chip and the kids could hold them (he has a handful of them).
We like bees, but these are a lot of bees.
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Below: Tosh and the Cecropia moth caterpillars that ate the pear tree leaves before cocooning and then wintering in our fridge until March. Ari named all six of them; she could tell them apart because they had differing colors on their segments.
Ari and a garden friend.
Butterfly Plants to Look for at Your Local Nursery:
Autumn oliveBee balm
Bergamot
Butterfly bush
Butterfly weed
Cardinal flower
Coneflowers
Coral bells
Cosmos
Daisy
Dame's rocket
Flowering tobacco
Impatiens
Ironweed
Lantana
Live-for-ever
Marigolds
Milkweeds
New England asters
New Jersey tea
Petunia
Phlox
Privet
Spearmint
Thistles
Verbena
Zinnias