This is a good piece. I work with people who provide child care and
plan to forward it on to them to help inspire them to get the kids
out and perhaps do a little gardening.
Did the butterfly lay eggs on your fatsia?
Warmly, Carole
In My Garden Blog
Coastal and Tropical South
April 27, 2006
By
Nellie Neal,
Baton Rouge, LA
Surprise! Fatsia is not known as a butterfly host plant, but seeing is believing.
Bring on the Butterflies
Nothing gets a child hooked on the natural world faster than watching a larva feed for days, spin a cocoon, then emerge as a butterfly or moth. Garden so your patch of the world nurtures butterflies and other pollinators, and you'll grow better kids, too.
Nature-Deficit Disorder
In his landmark book, Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv writes that, "baby boomers -- Americans born between 1946 and 1964 -- may constitute the last generation of Americans to share an intimate, familial attachment to the land and water." Without those ties, the next generations will not see gardening, or small farms, or even conservation in the greatest sense as important. The consequences could be profound, both on the individuals who are emotionally cut off from their environment, and the habitat that sustains us.
In home gardens, the nurturing of nature goes on every day. By choosing a combination of flower shapes, sizes, and colors, you create an attractive garden to welcome bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other important pollinating insects. But consider two more factors: height of the flowers and your gardening practices. Both make a huge difference in the numbers of butterflies, dragonflies, bees, and other pollinators that visit your garden. By planting flowers at three heights -- ankle, knee, and thigh of the average adult -- you provide the multidimensional buffet they seek.
Always remember that the same controls that keep the aphids from devouring your tomatoes, even if they are organic controls, are toxic to many insects you'd like to have in your garden. Use targeted, predator controls whenever possible, and spray or dust only the affected plants, not the entire garden.
Plant These Butterfly Magnets
Some of the grandest, easiest-to-grow plants also are hosts for some of our most beautiful butterflies. Plant candle plant from seed now for sweet sulfurs; parsley, fennel, and dill for swallowtails; maypop for beloved gulf fritillary; and milkweeds for the monarchs. Teach your children about them, so they will understand nature's vital importance to their future.
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Comments on Bring on the Butterflies
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We welcome your questions and comments about this column. If you have gardening questions unrelated to the column, please ask them on our message boards.
Carole Tebay
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Nellie Neal
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Thank you for your kind review, and, even more, for sharing your
love of gardening to encourage others to 'pass the shovel' on to the
next generation. I hope your teacher friends will put in a garden,
whether it's in the ground or containers around the school yard. And
I hope they participate in Monarch Watch, a program that rescues
monarch eggs that are too near fire ant mounds to survive and brings
them to classrooms with butterfly weed in a small cage. Students get
to watch the process of metamorphosis up close, and they'll never
forget it! I didn't find any eggs on the fatsia, but did have
butterfly weed planted in the next bed, and the monarch did find it.
Thanks again for writing.
Valerie Butler
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You want to see butterflies, plant a tithonia! I got a surprise one
in a packet of seeds, and couldn't believe the florescent orange
flowers, or the constant flow of butterflies I got all last summer.
Nellie Neal
Absolutely! Mexican sunflower, or tithonia, is a great big gorgeous
summer annual that belongs in the pollination garden, for sure. It's
as big as cleome, but very different looking (hairy leaves, orange
daisy-type flowers usually). Thanks for mentioning it.