Butterfly Gardening

     Today The Houston Museum held a plant sale of butterfly plants.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE butterflies?  I have had a lifelong love affair with one of the most fascinating insects in God’s beautiful world.  When I was a child growing up in rural south Georgia, I spent many hours in my grandmother’s garden that literally wrapped around the front and long side of the house.  I became her shadow in her garden.  We didn’t talk much, as she had trouble speaking in a voice that you could hear or understand her words.  We communicated through her love of flowers and her butterflies.  What wonderful peace I felt in her flower garden.  It was quite large and I remember every plant and corner of it as if it were today.  She is never far from my thoughts when I work in my own garden now. 

   
     Many years ago, I convinced my husband that we needed to dig out all the ‘city’ grass and allow me to play in the dirt with plants, specifically plants that attracted butterflies.  Needless to say, he was not thrilled about this project fearing that I would soon tire of the gardening theme and move on to other projects.  We started small but within a  couple of years the entire backyard became a garden, no grass.  I wanted flagstone paths. Being an engineer, he plotted the paths that I marked off, we dug out the grass, hauled in sand and spent many a weekend, lifting heavy flagstone that I would lay on the sand paths, all the next week.  I have spent  many hours digging in the Houston clay amending the soil with sulfur for my camellias and compost for the other beds.  My favorite mulch is pine straw, of course.  What else would a GA native want?  Today, you cannot dig anywhere in the yard without huge earthworms wiggling around. 

     I grow plants for the larvae of about 6 different butterflies, 4 of them swallowtails. There are nectar plants to feed the butterflies and plants to fill in the space and anchor the backyard setting.  In the summer, there are butterflies continually in the yard.  Recently, 15 Eastern Black Swallowtail eggs hatched into caterpillars.  All survived and have ‘hung’ themselves (chrysalis) either on the plant or around the yard.  When they all emerge into beautiful butterflies, the yard will be a flutter of beauty. 

Eastern Black Swallowtail's caterpillar

   

     Today, we went to the plant sale at the Cockrell Butterfly Center.  Sure enough, I found a few things for my butterflies.  Living in Houston, we should be able to attract the Zebra Swallowtail.  I have never found the plant to buy for them.  I found my Paw Paw seedling at the sale.  I cannot wait to have them visit my yard.  I am assured by all my reading about them that this tree WILL attract the butterfly to lay the eggs on it.  My heart leaps with joy to have this plant in my yard now.  I will take pictures when I have them come to the tree. 

Chrysalis of the Giant Sulphur on its larval shrub, a Senna

     This has been a good Saturday filled with thoughts of butterflies and plants.  After the sale of plants on the roof of the museum this morning, we went downstairs and walked through the beautiful Cockrell Butterfly Center again.  If you have never taken a walk through a butterfly center, I highly recommend it.  They flutter past you totally unaware or uncaring that humans are in their tropical forest.  Color abounds, the human eye cannot focus on every inch of the beauty that is around you. When the world seems hectic and you need some quiet time, stop by a butterfly habitat and view the world of flying insects.  You will not be disappointed and you might just find a new hobby, butterfly gardening.



 

Photo of my granddaughter, Emma, sitting in doorway of her great-great grandfather's old home place.  Taken Oct. 2010.                  

      Yes, the house is still there on the farm and still remains in the family.  A previous family owner removed the large flower garden and all the brickwork around the bed.  No matter, when I visited and stood in the middle of an empty and barren yard, where the center of the garden once had a huge climbing red rose bush, a single large swallowtail came and lit at my feet.  I was moved to tears at the thought that my grandmother's presence was still there on that barren ground.