Re: Bird, Bees and Butterfly Gardens

These people so far have not given me any particular indication of  "going
pretty",  I just worry beacause they are interns with not much guidance.
And since the "Everlasting & Cutting" garden no longer has ANY everlastings
and they order border dahlias and edging plants rather than something for
cutting, I worry that it is easy to get off track.

Thanks for your insights on BBB, I'm going to save these notes and if I can
find a time that they would be receptive, will pass them on.  I don't want
to be pushy but they should have some direction.  Thanks.

Kitty

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <TeichFlora@aol.com>
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 10:03 AM
Subject: Re: [CHAT] Bird, Bees and Butterfly Gardens


> Oh my!  Host plants are rarely pretty, since they get eaten by  the
> caterpillars....unless one uses Bt or such, and then it defeats the
purpose  of having
> a BBB garden.  Hm...perhaps you can suggest planting nectar  plants around
the
> host plants to hide the lack of foliage??  The plants  would still bloom,
> just at times not have perfect foliage, if  any.
>
> Cannas are one of the host plants of some of the Skipper  butterfies.  The
la
> rvae roll themselves up in the leaf.  Cannas having  such large leaves
really
> show the damage more, so would be a chore to keep that  "pretty" unless
well
> hidden.  Most "show" gardens don't add cannas to their  BBB gardens due to
> this, but in an educational garden where emphasis is put  on the actual
viewing of
> the life cycle of a butterfly and not so much on  beauty, it would be
> excellent.  The caterpillars don't have any effect on  the blooms.....only
the
> foliage, so host plants still bloom well....some say  even more due to the
castings
> left.
>
> Sometimes the educational process is a bit more tedious for the MG's
> themselves.  It was very painstaking for the Butterfly committee to
educate  the rest
> of the MG's on exactly what the purpose was of the Butterfly  garden.  We
> lost more host plants to well meaning MG's pulling what they  thought
looked bad,
> and spraying insecticide on our "infected" plants.   Finally we had to
move
> the garden totally to a different area away from other  areas and fence it
off.
>
>
> Noreen
> zone 9
> Texas Gulf Coast
>
> In a message dated 5/17/2005 10:05:28 AM Central Standard Time,
> gardenchat-owner@hort.net writes:
>
> One  thing worries me, in an effort
> to clean up and rearrange this badly  neglected garden, I worry that they
may
> move toward pretty rahter than  focusing on the needs of BBB.  This is
what
> has occurred to some  extent in our Everlastings and Cutting Garden.  Do
you
> know which BBB  are interested in Cannas?
>
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