Butterfly Identification 2

The Black Swallowtail Butterfly

Dill: The host plant for Swallortail Butterflies

Grow dill from seed in full sun and well drained soil.

It can be used to pickle cucumbers, in egg dishes. It's an excellent herb for fish and chicken. The seed can also be saved and used. Don't be shocked if the plant is chewed completely to the ground, so plant plenty.

Nectar Plant: Joe Pye Weed

Beloved by many different butterflies, JPW is a very tall perennial that loves moist soil. Some types can get as tall as 7 feet, though there are dwarf versions out there.

Grow in full sun. You can incorperate JPW in your mudpuddle area, or your down spout.

Tall version: Gateway

Dwarf version: Little Joe

Butterfly Identification 1

The Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Dill: The host plant for the Tiger Swallowtail

Grow in full sun from seed. Use in salads, dressings, egg dishes and pickle recipies. The seeds can also be used.

The eggs look like little white drops of water. The caterpillars start out very small, but grow quickly. They can eat an entire plant to the ground, so plant tons.

Butterfly Bush: Nectar plant

I know the butterfly bush is on many invasive plant lists, but I have to have it in my garden. It's too important a food source. Just don't let it go to seed and you should be alright.

To keep your bush under control, cut it back to a foot tall in the spring and when you go to deadhead it (removing spent blossoms for reblooming) take it back by 1/3 instead of deadheading each flower. This keeps the shrub compact and undercontrol. I usually have to do this 2 to 3 times a season.

The Ideal Butterfly Garden

The Ideal Butterfly Garden

The ideal butterfly garden should include one or more of the following things...

Host plants (plants the caterpillars eat) and nectar plants (plants from which adult butterflies feed).

A fruit tree is another good thing to include because many butterflies like to drink fermented fruit. A drunken butterfly is a happy butterfly.

Small flat rocks provide a place for our winged friends to sun themselves in the mornings, while logs or brush piles provide shelter from predators and a place where they may hybernate.

Butterflies (especially males) love a good mudpuddle, though I've never seen them make a pie. They drink minerals and salts from them. Butterflies also drink water, but need a perch. A few large stones in a shallow pan or saucer makes and ideal 'watering hole'.

Fruit feeders are another useful tool in attracting butterflies. Simply place your 'too ripe' fruit on a platform bird feeder and stand back. They will flock to the fruit...the uckier the better. Melon rinds and banana peels are also welcome. Some favorite butterfly fruits: apple, peach, banana, and melon. There are a number of butterflies that feed off tree sap (Monarch) as well as dung and carrion...but not in MY backyard!

Birdwatchers may have to travel the globe to pratice their hobby, but 'butterflyers' can watch from the comfort of their own gardens. I hope this inspires you to take on another hobby and...

Happy Gardening!

Cheers, Mark

PS: Never ever spray a butterfly garden, please.

Native Grasses

Little Blue Stem Grass: Small prairie grass with blue color during the growing season. The wonderful thing about little blue stem is the fall colors of red and orange. It flowers in late summer with a corn tassle type bloom. Aprox. 2-3 ft tall at maturity

Purple Love grass: A very short grass, 1.5 ft tall with smokey type blooms is summer.

Muhley Grass: My favorite native grass, grows to about 3 ft with smokey pink/purple blooms. It has thin blades and flowers very late in the season. Sometimes not until October.

Dewy Blue Beach Grass: A switch grass that is local to our Dewey Beach Delaware dunes. Grows to about 3 or 4 ft tall with a blue tint to its blades.

Beach Grass Tips: Do NOT over water. Grasses like very well drained sandy soil, so let them dry back before watering them. Cut back these grasses in the spring, not the fall. All grasses have the potential for failure and rot if their crown is exposed to the harsh winter weather all season. The upright blades protect the plant, look great with snow on them. They also sound like the beach when the wind whips through them. They also serve as great cover for wildlife, especially birds.

Native Perennials

Verbena Hastata (vervane)

Tall perenial (4-5 ft) with spiked blue/purple flowers. As season progresses or plant is dead headed secondary blossoms emerge from lateral growth.

Drought tolerant and looks good behind red roses. Good butterfly nectar.

Swamp rose: a true rosa, not a mallow (hibiscus) This rose grows along the moist banks of rivers and wetlands. I have only seen pink ones, but you never know what mother nature has out there. Great by a downspout in your garden. Spreads rapidly and needs to be kept in bounds with severe pruning.

Joe Pye Weed (eupatorium)

There are many new hybrids of Joe out there now, many dwarf versions of the species. It can grow to 7 feet tall in a moist area and looks great planted with many of the other tall native perennials such as NY Iron Weed and Verbena Hastata.

Loved by butterflies, its bloom time is rather short if not in a moist area.

New York Ironweed

My favorite native perennial next to purple coneflowers. Tall and regal, this plant lives up to its name. It is tough and can take more abuse then anyother flower I know. NYI can get 5 ft tall and butterflies love it. It looks great surrounded by short clipped boxwood, or in a meadow of prairie wildflowers, or in your cottage garden. I use it as a back of the border plant when I need height, but don't want a shrub.

The best combination is with a black elderberry shrub!

Asclepia Tuberosa (butterfly weed)

As we say in the native plant business, this is an 'upland' plant. Meaning, a plant that likes a drying soil. One that is on higher ground. Beautiful orange flowers that look great combined with the deep purple of May Night salvia. Use care when transplanting and don't disturb the tap root. This plant is food for the monarch butterfly AND its larva, so it is very important plant in the butterflyer's world.

Grows to about two feet. Don't freak out if it's chewed to the ground, you'll have monarch butterflies to show for your devotion!

Asclepia Incarnata (Swamp Milkweed)

A 'lowland' plant, so it likes moisture. It doesn't have to be wet or boggy. Wonderful pink domes of flowers. It also is food for the larva and adult monarch.

Grows to three feet.

This plant will also be chewed to hell by the monarch larve, but it's worth it for both their beauty! It's always covered with aphids, but the plants don't seem to mind it, go figure? Never spray butterfly plants, please!

Agastache (Anise Hyssop)

Native more to the southwest, it is nevertheless found in the mid-atlantic states from time to time.

Lovely blue spiked flowers last almost all season long and I don't think I've ever had to deadhead it. It can grow to three feet tall and can become rather woody when old, so cut it to the ground in spring. Wonderful scent to the leaves. I plant it near the veggies because it really brings in the bees!

Native Shrubs

Witch Hazel: A very old fashion shrub that your grandmother may have had in her garden or even used on her face. Grown in full sun or light shade, these are large shrubs and grow to 12 feet or more, but can be pruned. They usually bloom in late fall to late winter and the blooms can be yellow or I have also seen red.

Like quince and forsythia, you can 'force' the branches into bloom.

The blossom is like a tassel and forms right on the twigs and branches like a pom-pom. During the growing season it is simply green. This shrub can also take a wet foot.

Red Twig Dogwood

Can also take a moist foot and grow to 10 feet tall. It is a shrub and not to be confused with the dogwood tree, although this plant is a true dogwood.

With white spring flowers and berries in the fall, the red twig is grown for its winter interest. The bright fire engine red twigs. These can be harvested and used in decorations for the holidays or simply enjoyed in a small vase alone with some greens. To keep it small, prune it to a foot tall after it blooms in spring.

Cranberry Viburnum

Maple type leaves on this large shrub. Small flowers in the spring, but puts on an amazing show of edible red berries in fall. Amazing.

Native Trees

This service berry tree can be used to replace the utterly invasive bradford pear. The pear is displacing loads of forest space because the local bird population eats the fruit and scatters the seed miles away in the forest in their droppings.

The serviceberry tree (amalanchier) grows to 20 feet or so with beautiful flowers in the spring. In the summer it produces a fruit that attracts birds (a birding friend saw mother blue bird feeding berries to her young just this spring). The fruit is edible by humans also.

The great plus of the serviceberry tree is that it can take a moist foot. It doesn't need it but can handle it. It is a clumping tree that usually has multiple trunks, although it can be found in a single trunk form groomed that way from a local nursery.

The serviceberry also has nice bright orange leaves in fall, making it a lovely addition to your landscape or garden.