Bring Life to Your Garden with Butterflies!

Bring Life to Your Garden with Butterflies!

by | Aug 4, 2014

Attracting Butterflies into Your Landscape

Have you been itching to add some life and color into your landscape? Why not plant a butterfly garden?! Butterfly gardens are a great way to add movement and life to an otherwise stagnant landscape. Most butterfly gardens are not only an attractant for our Florida butterflies, but are also a magnet for hummingbirds and beneficial insects. To start your garden all you need are a few key plants.

Gulf Fritillary. Photo Courtesy Scott Jackson.

Gulf Fritillary. Photo Courtesy Scott Jackson.

Incorporate at least one host plant and one nectar plant into your garden. The host plant provides a suitable habitat for the female butterfly to lay her eggs. These eggs will hatch and the baby caterpillars will eat the leaves of the host plant. Host plants are often not as showy as nectar plants, nor are they even necessary to attract adult butterflies. However, while nectar plants invite butterflies into your garden to feed, host plants offer them a reason to stay and reproduce. And you can watch this entire cycle unfold in your own garden!

Most of your butterfly attractant plants will do best in full sun to partial shade. Try not to apply pesticides in areas where you want to maintain healthy caterpillar/butterfly populations. Providing water for butterflies is very important and easily done. One option is to fill a clay tray with sand and then place a rock in the center, where the butterfly can perch. Keep the sand wet, but avoid standing water. Feel free to contact your local extension office for more information on our winged friends!

Zebra Longwing, our state butterfly! Photo courtesy Scott Jackson.

Zebra Longwing, our state butterfly! Photo courtesy Scott Jackson.

 

Here are a few examples of butterflies and their preferred host plants:

  • Black Swallowtail

o   Host Plants – Fennel, Parsley, Bishopsweed

  • Zebra Swallowtail

o   Host Plants – Pawpaw

  • Giant Swallowtail

o   Host Plants – Wild Lime, Hercules-club, Citrus spp.

  • Tiger Swallowtail

o   Host Plants – Ash, Black Cherry, Tulip tree, Sweetbay Magnolia

  • Cloudless Sulphur

o   Host Plants – Partridge Pea, Cassia

  • Gulf Fritillary

o   Host Plants – Passion Vines

  • Zebra Longwing (State Butterfly of Florida)

o   Host Plants – Passion Vines

  • Monarch

o   Host Plants – Milkweed, Butterfly Weed

Here are nectar plants that will have the butterflies swarming to your garden:

  • Firebush
  • Milkweed
  • Blanket Flower
  • Sage (Salvia spp.)
  • Butterfly Bush
  • Blazing Star
  • Yarrow
  • Pentas
  • Stoke’s Aster

 

Wasps Have a Purpose

Wasps Have a Purpose

by | Aug 4, 2014

Mud dauber, Photo Credit: UF/IFAS Extension

Mud dauber, Photo Credit: UF/IFAS Extension

Paper wasp, Photo Credit: UF/IFAS Extension

Paper wasp, Photo Credit: UF/IFAS Extension

 

I respect the fact that wasps can sting when threatened or disturbed. But I also respect the fact that they are beneficial.

 

Every time I’ve been stung by wasps, I either accidentally disturbed a nest that I didn’t know was there or I intentionally disturbed the nest and paid the price.

 

Paper wasps are common in Florida. They frequently construct and attach their paper-like nests to building eaves or the ceilings of porches. The adults seek out caterpillars, which they sting and paralyze. They then take the caterpillars back to their nest and place them in individual cells as food for the developing larvae.

 

I’ve witnessed the paper wasp as it stings and carries away a caterpillar from my vegetable garden. They are busy insects and are doing us gardeners a favor by reducing the population of caterpillars in our landscapes and gardens.

 

There are other beneficial wasps in Florida. Mud daubers, for example, build their mud-like nests on the sides of buildings close to human activity.

 

The mud dauber is not as aggressive as the paper wasp. It rarely stings people. It stings and paralyzes spiders. The mud dauber lays an egg on each paralyzed spider and seals it inside a chamber in its earthen nest. Upon hatching, the wasp larva feeds on the body of the spider. An emergence hole is made as the young wasp leaves the mud nest.

 

It may not be wise to tolerate all wasp species living in close proximity to your home. Even though yellow jackets, a type of wasp, could be considered beneficial, they are too aggressive and too likely to repeatedly sting to have as close neighbors. I also would be concerned with any type of wasp or bee nest existing in close proximity to individuals with a known allergy to insect stings.

 

Just because an insect has the ability to sting, it’s not all bad. Wasps can serve a beneficial purpose. But you’ll have to decide for yourself how close to you they can build their nests. The front porch may be too close.