Image via Wikipedia When my 8 year old daughter and I first decided to create a butterfly garden, we never expected to achieve the results that we have gotten during our fist full year of butterfly gardening. Wesli and I started with 10 seedlings of the Yellow milkweed plant. Only 6 of those plants survived. I ran an ad on Craigslist for some milkweed plants and a reader was gracious enough to send me free seeds for the Red milkweed plant and a few nectar plants.
We started in early spring by placing the seeds in peat pods. We also got some seeds from Wal-Mart for Salvia, Black-eyed Susan and Blanket flowers. All of these seeds had about a 90% germination rate and when the seedlings became about 4 inches tall, we transplanted them into the garden. While transplanting, we tried to keep in mind what the garden will look like when the plants mature. Some of the transplanting was done with Miracle Grow Potting Mix and others were just placed into the ground. I will say that the seedlings planted with the Miracle Grow grew much larger.
Once the plantings were completed, we then prepared the area to be weed-free. We collected bags of leaves from neighbors and from people we didn't even know that had bags of leaves set out for garbage pickup. My wife Hollis would come home from work and tell me that she had bags in the trunk of her car that she saw and stopped to get.
We started with newspapers that we had been saving. I prefer to use newspaper for a bed lining than to use a “weed cloth”. We placed the newspaper on the ground without being scientific in the approach. The newspaper we laid down ranged between 6 and 10 sheets including the small add papers. Wesli enjoyed spraying the paper with water as I laid it so it would not blow away. Though I think she most enjoyed getting me wet. Once we had a small area covered with newspaper, we covered the area with the leaves we had collected. The entire area was completed and it had about 3 inches of leaves on it. The newspaper and leaves went right up to the stalk of each plant.
The reason for preparing the garden after we planted is that once you dig up the soil to plant, you end up disturbing weed seed that has been buried and once this seed gets on top of the ground you will have a lot of weeds popping up around your new seedlings. The weed seed will grow fast with the water and sun. You could sprinkle Preen around the new planting, but that can get expensive.
The newspaper and leaves kept the garden weed-free all season and it is just showing some signs of wear on our walk path. Here in Central Florida, leaves will soon start to fall and we will again collect them and refresh the area with a new layer of leaves.
So after many different plants have been added to our garden, we were able to see about 115 Monarch butterflies go through their many life stages and fly away. There were two time periods when the Monarchs came and laid their eggs. However, the Monarchs just recently came in October and laid eggs. We were able to find a couple of small caterpillars, but they seemed to have disappeared.
Our garden has thrived and besides the Monarchs, we have also had Black Swallowtails, Yellow Sulfurs, Zebra Longwing, and Julla butterflies visit. Many other insects such as the brown wasp, yellow jacket, ladybugs, lacewings, and others I have yet to identify also thrive in the garden.
When picking and cutting seed pods and seed heads from some of the plants, the buzzing of the bees and wasps can be heard, but they have yet to ever bother us even when cutting pods under their noses. They seem to be saying, “You don’t hurt me and I won’t hurt you…”
Next Spring should be really interesting. Between what we have planted and what has grown wild, we will have about 30 milkweed plants for the Monarchs. We estimate at least 5 caterpillars per plant. Until then, we will continue to collect the seeds from the milkweed, Black-eyed Susan, Blanket Flower, Mexican Sunflower and Thyrillias. We will share our seeds and hope others will have success too. We will also take some walks in the open fields in the area to locate some other Milkweed varieties. If we have the time, we will grow some host plants for the Black Swallowtail and the Yellow Sulfur too. Meanwhile, Wesli and I will share some of our success through photos and video clips of things to do in a Butterfly Garden.
Gods Speed
