Wildscaping North Texas: episode 3

by Anne Meyer

Watch A quick and easy butterfly garden (part 1) in Educational & How-To  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

If you had only two weeks to live -- and survival of the species depended on you -- how would you spend your time?

Most butterflies face that question as soon as they emerge from the chrysalis. Their answer: Make babies! The female faces the added challenge of finding exactly the right place to lay her eggs.

When the eggs hatch, butterfly caterpillars don't eat just whatever's handy! Instead, most are extremely picky about their food, requiring chemical combos that can be found in only one family or even just one exact species of plant. Mother butterflies spend a great deal of time searching for -- actually, sniffing out -- the specific plants that her babies will need.

Watch A quick and easy butterfly garden, part 2 in Educational & How-To  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Attracting butterflies, then, is as simple as luring the mothers, with the right caterpillar food plants, on a sunny apartment porch or a backyard herb garden. The following list (which does NOT include boxwood!) also includes special tips, along with the recommended number of plants to make them "smellable" to any mother butterfly in the area.

* Dill - any species - attracts the lovely Eastern Black Swallowtail. Fennel attracts it too, but also has a tendency to attract aphids. Gets to about 3 feet tall and can be used in cooking. Evergreen. Get at least three plants. TIP: get the tallest plants you can. Mama always lays her eggs on the highest sprig of dill around.

* Parsley -- any species -- is another plant for the Eastern Black Swallowtail. Get the kind you'll want for cooking. Evergreen, and one plant is plenty!

* Rue (Ruta graveolens) feeds both the Eastern Black Swallowtail and the Giant Swallowtail. Grows to about 2 feet tall, evergreen, and is used in cooking. Get three plants. Rue needs excellent drainage.

* Any small citrus tree, such as "Improved Meyer Lemon" (no relation!) will also attract the Giant Swallowtail. They are not completely winter-hardy here, so keep it in a pot that you can move inside during a bad freeze.

* Snakeherb (Acanthaceae Dyschoriste linearis), a Texas native, attracts the Buckeye butterfly. A semi-evergreen groundcover with violet flowers in May and June; in a pot, it will flow gently over the side. (NOTE that the "horseherb" mentioned in the video segments is actually snakeherb. **OOPSIE!**)

* Plant a milkweed, and the Monarchs will come. Asclepias curassavica, commonly known as Mexican Milkweed, is the best-- it's the caterpillars' fave, it has pretty flowers and it's easy to grow. Generally it gets to be about two or three feet tall. An easily re-seeding plant which sometimes returns next spring. Slugs like milkweed but not coffee (they are slugs, after all), so discourage them with a moat of coffee grounds. And aphids like to eat this plant -- but ladybugs like to eat aphids. Ladybugs can be purchased at organic nurseries. Get at least three plants. TIP: Arrange them in a circle, not a straight line, so that caterpillars are more likely to find the food plant after they fall off it in self-defense.

* Gulf Fritillaries, orange butterflies a bit smaller than Monarchs, are passionate about any species of passionvine. Give it a trellis or porch railing and watch it grow. Evergreen, with orchid-like flowers in early summer that may bear fruit later on. (No, the fruit does not have aphrodisiac qualities, but you don't have to mention that to your sweetie.) TIP: Buy the plant with the most thread-like new shoots, since that's where Mama prefers to lay her eggs.

All of these plants are available at most nurseries. It would, of course, defeat the purpose if you bought a plant that had been treated with systemic insecticide! But even at an organic vendor, check to see if they have protected their inventory with a bit of organic pest-killer.

If you plant these guys in pots, here are a few tips for success:

* Get the biggest pots you can.

* Use the plainest (cheapest!) potting soil around -- anything with built-in chemical food will mess up the caterpillars.

* Give the plants the most sun possible.

* Mulch!!! Use leaves, sticks, bark, even shredded paper -- anything breathable to protect the soil and roots.

* Come winter, you can leave the plants outside (with the possible exception of the citrus tree). Whew!

This morning, while drinking coffee by the herb garden, we watched an Eastern Black Swallowtail emerge from her chrysalis. As she hung onto the plant stem, letting the blood pump to her new wings, I wondered what was going through her teensy brain. Perhaps she was thinking, "I have only two weeks -- how will I spend my time?"

Watch Birth of a butterfly in Old Lake Highlands in Educational & How-To  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

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