Butterfly Gardening Blog

My Wild Violets are blooming beautifully now! They of course are host plants for fritillaries, like the Variegated Fritillary. I mostly have them growing between and along my stepping stones:

Here’s a picture from a distance where you can see them around the stepping stones:

We have been replacing our lawn with a native grass, meanwhile - since it hasn’t filled in all the way there are lots of violets growing there. And dandelions too - but they are also pretty.

I’ve gotten a few of our Legacy grass plugs in now. I still have a lot to do though - it is hard work! With legacy you can just kill an area of existing grass with Roundup and then put the plug in. But I still dug away the dead grass around it to make it easier for it to grow. I’m a little concerned about how well it will compete with the other grass in our yard. Here is one plug shortly after it was planted:

(Technorati Tags: grass, buffalo grass, Legacy, lawn)

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:

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:

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.

This is a picture of the pond/rock garden of my husbands at night:

I’m also interested in carnivorous plants. These pictures are of blooms on a pitcher plant I have:

Sometime after my dad died a couple of years ago members of my family were given tulip bulbs by either our church or the funeral home (I can’t remember which now). Only one of mine bloomed this year:

While I am mostly interested in butterfly gardening, my husband likes to garden too and grows many different types of plants. He also likes making small ponds and using rocks to landscape. Below is one of his pond areas when the daffodils were still blooming next to it.