Butterfly Gardening Blog

Here are a couple of Black Swallowtail caterpillars from the first batch of Black Swallowtail eggs I’ve had this year. They are feeding on fennel.

Recently we found a Robin’s nest up in a trellis/arbor/whatever-you-call-it my husband built:

Here it is from a distance with a circle drawn around where the nest is:

We’ve been wanting to grow buffalo grass for a long time, but we knew we couldn’t afford to redo our whole lawn. When our sewer line needed to be worked on this spring, rather than sowing the area with a non-native grass seed, we got some buffalo grass instead. Then we decided to start more elsewhere – with both seeds and plugs. It’s kind of an experiment – we’ll start it in different places and see how well it grows and spreads.

Buffalo grass (Bucheloe dactyloides) is a native lawn grass. There are many varieties available. In general, in tends to need less water, many varieties grow great in clay and need mininal mowing.

I bought some Legacy plugs recently, I need to get them planted soon. It only grows to be 4-6 inches high, needs only 15 inches of water per year, loves clay and grows fast. Here is the tray of Legacy plugs I bought recently:

Here is one of the areas my husband is growing a different variety of Buffalo grass in – it is called Topgun:

My Golden Alexanders are starting to bloom too:

Our Irises are blooming now too. I don’t know what type they are, they were here when we bought the house:

I don’t know why these have all fallen over:

My small Lilac bush – Miss Kim, I believe – is starting to bloom. This is not a plant that butterflies really have an interest in and I don’t think they are native either. But I really like the smell of lilacs, so I planted just one small one a few years ago:

My husband has some Nelumbo lutea (American Lotus) growing in barrels. I bought the seeds from these from a place that sells just Missouri native plants. They are just starting to grow back:

Here some of the sunflowers my husband has started – he made little cages around them to keep the rabbits from eating them:

One of my scabiosas (pin cushion flowers) started blooming:

So did the snapdragons. They aren’t native – but are used by Buckeyes as a host plant. I haven’t never seen any on mine though.

Wood Betony is native and I believe is a secondary host plant for either Buckeyes or Baltimore’s:

Here are a couple pictures of the pond area in the daytime – the plants are just starting to really grow now!

Last year I started an herb garden. What’s growing so far in it this year is sage, terragon, fennel, lavender, rosemary, thyme, lemon balm, pepperment, spearament, borage, savory, oregano and chives. I still have several basils, some chamomile, anise and a few others to put out still.

Quick post – saw a Spicebush Swallowtail and a duskywing today, both puddling on some new topsoil we bought.

I just updated the Pipevine page, I plan to go through the site page by page and update everything this summer.

OT – Anyone reading this using this version of WP? It’s driving me nuts – I can’t get it to leave a space between the paragraphs no matter what I do!