Steady loss of butterfly species: Nature conservation areas no haven for butterflies https://t.co/zeI0skWwBo. Report is real science from fresh publications in reputable journals. These aren't anti-vaxxer Luddites.
The article here may sound a tad preachy but it's not saying something you might do even though I do not or have not ever done it myself. It's been my specific intention to rip out the lawn wherever I lived and the result comes with some serious labor but is immensely gratifying with the life it reveals.
Plan B for saving butterflies is increase number of conservation areas as people use their land for pastures instead of lawns. Yanks may not realize properties are typically bigger than those one will find in Europe ... but that luxury is often wasted on lawns which provide nothing to butterflies or much of anything else. Fire ants like a well-trimmed lawn (true).
My friend already plants some stuff butterflies are known to like but you can go full boat with wildflower seed packages and populate the yard with perennials. Note just because they're pretty doesn't necessarily mean butterflies will prefer them as a Monarch's favorite is milkweed. Sciencers identify some types of butterflies as 'habitat specialists' and this refers to whether the butterfly is picky in its diet, etc. If yes, then the chances for that butterfly's survival are diminishing significantly.
A pasture doesn't necessarily mean wild chaos. The yard here isn't so big so it wouldn't be at all cool to simply let it go fallow like the north forty. With a bit of husbandry, your pasture can be tailored by a bit of transplanting and whatnot with a result which is quite beautiful. Tailoring doesn't mean regimenting anything but similar types of flowers may do better grouped and you just help them out a bit.
Perennial flowers usually reseed themselves or the root / bulb survives so they come back year after year. The charm of them is, unlike annuals which flower all summer, perennials have only one period of flowering. By planting them based on flowering periods, it's possible to design your garden so there are colors all over it and they change continually throughout the season. It's important to throw out any ideas of planting things in rows or anything artificial of that nature as that kind of planting won't make it look better, it will only make it look military.
I've loved gardening since Lotho and I were the garden boys when my ol' Mother had her hands completely full with, well, life with six kids. It's a lot of work converting a lawn but I did that in two out of three places of my own in which I lived after that. It's not so much a leaping joy which comes from it but rather a delicious quiet pleasure in all this life and all this color around you. When I see so many jangled people, it clicks immediately to gardens. It's hard to stay tense when you're sticking your hands into mud. Trust Uncle Silas on this one (larfs).
Saving butterflies doesn't have to be some huge altruistic deal, even if it is, when it's quite a self-indulgence to have a really beautiful garden ... and it doesn't even take that much work once you get it started. That's when you hear Grandma say she will 'putter about in the garden.'
The article here may sound a tad preachy but it's not saying something you might do even though I do not or have not ever done it myself. It's been my specific intention to rip out the lawn wherever I lived and the result comes with some serious labor but is immensely gratifying with the life it reveals.
Plan B for saving butterflies is increase number of conservation areas as people use their land for pastures instead of lawns. Yanks may not realize properties are typically bigger than those one will find in Europe ... but that luxury is often wasted on lawns which provide nothing to butterflies or much of anything else. Fire ants like a well-trimmed lawn (true).
My friend already plants some stuff butterflies are known to like but you can go full boat with wildflower seed packages and populate the yard with perennials. Note just because they're pretty doesn't necessarily mean butterflies will prefer them as a Monarch's favorite is milkweed. Sciencers identify some types of butterflies as 'habitat specialists' and this refers to whether the butterfly is picky in its diet, etc. If yes, then the chances for that butterfly's survival are diminishing significantly.
A pasture doesn't necessarily mean wild chaos. The yard here isn't so big so it wouldn't be at all cool to simply let it go fallow like the north forty. With a bit of husbandry, your pasture can be tailored by a bit of transplanting and whatnot with a result which is quite beautiful. Tailoring doesn't mean regimenting anything but similar types of flowers may do better grouped and you just help them out a bit.
Perennial flowers usually reseed themselves or the root / bulb survives so they come back year after year. The charm of them is, unlike annuals which flower all summer, perennials have only one period of flowering. By planting them based on flowering periods, it's possible to design your garden so there are colors all over it and they change continually throughout the season. It's important to throw out any ideas of planting things in rows or anything artificial of that nature as that kind of planting won't make it look better, it will only make it look military.
I've loved gardening since Lotho and I were the garden boys when my ol' Mother had her hands completely full with, well, life with six kids. It's a lot of work converting a lawn but I did that in two out of three places of my own in which I lived after that. It's not so much a leaping joy which comes from it but rather a delicious quiet pleasure in all this life and all this color around you. When I see so many jangled people, it clicks immediately to gardens. It's hard to stay tense when you're sticking your hands into mud. Trust Uncle Silas on this one (larfs).
Saving butterflies doesn't have to be some huge altruistic deal, even if it is, when it's quite a self-indulgence to have a really beautiful garden ... and it doesn't even take that much work once you get it started. That's when you hear Grandma say she will 'putter about in the garden.'
(Ed: because it takes that long to get it working?)
Nah, because it takes that long before you're finally satisfied it's just right.
(Ed: does that ever really come?)
Nope, but you keep puttering ... it will. So will the butterflies, little yellow finches, probably some frogs ... life! If you plant the right things, even hummingbirds may come.
Note on the work up-front: I wheelbarrowed so many loads of this and that for the gardening that the muscle tone from it is probably why my body hasn't turned completely to rubber yet. You bet you will be working hard to get it started but it's so dayum cool when it's in front of you.
To get the full score, get you some bat houses because bats are some high-rotation power tools when it comes to bug-eating, particularly mosquitos. Bats are your friends! (larfs)
9 comments:
Thus your nickname 'Batsard'. UH!
A butterfly garden is very cheap. Most garden stores sell bags of butterfly flower seeds for about $5 Clear a little area toss the seeds and wait. Mother Nature will do the rest. Add some sunflowers across the back the birds will love them as they go to seed.
If you ate the adventerous type you can buy a local butterfly book. And plant flowers specifically for local or migrating butterflies.
Butterflies of Tennessee by Rita Venable is my local butterfly bible. There are some 120 species local to Tennessee I plant for about 40. The book breaks down by butterfly and caterpiller and by food source time of year.
The Fairy Princess loves the flower walks looking for both butterfly and caterpiller.
Blood pressure goes down proportionally to garden time.
PS bat houses are a must. As is sitting in a chair with two quarters to rub together a little after dusk.
PS many perennials flower continually from spring til first frost. Roses being the prime example.
My ol' Mother came up with 'batsard' and Henry D made it famous (larfs). I figured it was as good a nickname as any and thus my title was born which lasted ... until now!
Why do we rub quarters together?? That might be sounding a little witch doctor!
Roses are a good example of strange behavior and this starts getting up into woody plants but that culminates with trees, most of which have a highly-specific flowering season even when they have teeny tiny flowers.
It looks to me like the Rose is an exception and maybe perennial has a longer flowering period when its original home was kind of tropical and easily permitted a longer season. Maybe. Unknown.
It was Japanese Beetles what put me off roses. Those disgusting horrors of hell are so hard to repel I finally decided it was impossible and gave up on roses (larfs).
Bleeding Hearts flower all year I have a yard full of all season perennials. Most woody plants are not like roses and have short flowering periods such as lilac wisteria or wigelas all flowering in spring and then go to leaf.
Rubbing quarters together will attract the bats that the bat houses have provided shelter
Japanese beetles,are easy to control now.
Planting crepe myrtles or grapes will allow the beetles a more preferred food source as they eat the leaves not the flowers.
Also start a milky spore culture in your lawn kills the grubs before the develop The milky spore takes several years to spread throughout the lawn but is extremely effective once generated I have used an ols style beetle trap in 10 years and dont lose roses to the beetles
Funny how they are not a problem in Japan because of natural predators
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