I have no idea what kind of butterfly this guy is, but he's awfully pretty!!!! He hug out for a couple of days.
On a side note, when our nephew was over, I learned that there is a "hard page" version of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." Who knew?
I'd like to plant more 'butterfly" attracting plants ... but am not sure what direction to go.
Also spending a lot of quality time with the cone flowers is local bees.
Somewhere I was reading that planting "native" plants to your region is good because it encourages local and natural/native insect activity. It's not really "sexy" to think about the insects, but if things get too out of whack, I guess it's not a good thing.
We've yet to make any BIG planting decisions in our yard ... partly because I would like to use as many native plants as possible (the up side to this is they tend to be more able to handle the heat/minimal water). I just don't know where to start! If anyone has words of wisdom, I'd take them!
There are 2 bees here!
***NOTE: These photos were taken with my little dinky camera ... using teh MACRO (or flower picture) setting. Just a little tip for you our there who want to take close up photos of your flowers or whatnot. I also used the same thing in photographing my eggplants + peppers. They're tiny little guys.
2 comments:
just planted a perennial garden this year of prairie-type flowers, most of which are very butterfly/insect friendly. Coreopsis, Liatris Spicata, Russian Sage, Black-Eyed Susans, Yarrow, Stella de Oro Daylilies, Coneflower, Phlox, Aster, Sedum, Blanketflower, and Buddelia (Butterfly Bush.) Everything except for the Butterfly Bush is doing well so far (even in this ridiculous heat) I water them with my soaker hoses every other day for a few hours. They should spread and come back every year now!
Everything Michelle said is great, and the ones that aren't native are very drought tolerant, once they've had a year to get established. I've had Russian Sage for years, and while it's great, it does spread, and not really how you'd like. I'm going to thin mine out because it's taking over that area and crowding other things out. I'd like to try and transplant some, but I don't know how well it will do.
There's also butterfly weed, although some marketing person probably thought "weed" wouldn't sell well, so look for Asclepias tuberosa. It's a prairie plant, but for some reason it does better under my tree than in the sun. Gorgeous orange flowers.
If you've got any shady spots, irises are good.
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