There are books written on the facets of butterfly gardens and bee keeping, so I won’t try to make this the definitive guide.  In fact, this is really just a quick list of what to add to your garden to attract the pollinators which will multiply the yield of your plants.  Ever see a picture of a tomato plant weighed down by so much fruit that you thought it must have been done in Photoshop?  Well, plants that produce well have to be pollinated well and that starts with the butterflies and the bees (maybe your version included birds.)

Even the most novice gardener tends to know that bees on the plants and flowers is a good thing.  The plant pops out a flower, the bees come wandering through and grab up some pollen, and then they move off to the next flower and do it all over again.  When they do, they move pollen between the  flower’s stamen and pistil and that helps the plant set fruit.  The more flowers are touched by these pollinators, the more fruit the plant will set and that means a bigger harvest.  I’m sure there is a more technical explanation, but really, does it matter?

So what do you plant to attract butterflies?

That depends a lot on your climate zone, but there are a few ways to look at growing for beneficial insects or pollinators like the butterflies and bees.  You could choose to simply plant flowers based on color.  This would be

NECTAR AND HOST PLANTS

Butterflies tend to hang out near one of two plants: ones that produce a tasty snack of nectar, and plants where they will lay eggs.  These are known best as  nectar and host plants.  And, since butterflies can tend to be picky eaters, they often use just a single plant family as a food source for the caterpillars. Prevailing wisdom is to plant both nectar and host plants to draw butterflies into their gardens.

FOOD FOR THE BUTTERFLIES & BEES

Maybe the hardest part of a butterfly garden is to allow the caterpillars to munch on your plants while they grow up.  With the exception of a handful of species, caterpillars don’t tend catastrophically damage to the plants. Take a deep breath and realize that’s why you planted the host plant to begin with.  Why else you have planted milk weed?

What about the Bees?

If you’ve ever been to a store that sells a good selection of honey, you realize that bees are much less selective than butterflies.  While clover and orange blossom honey seems to dominate the shelves of the supermarket, you can find honey made from just about any flowering plant or tree around.  In fact, one of mine and my wife’s favorites is the honey from the mesquite tree. Unlike clover honey that is light and thin, mesquite honey is dark and thick; perfect for simmering pecans in to drizzle over French toast  for a lazy weekend breakfast. I digress.  My point is that bees will make honey from just about any pollen producing flower, and that’s good for your garden.

Choosing Flower Colors for Bees?

Often times this is quite a riddle since bees see in Ultraviolet (UV) light.  Surprisingly, the color red is thought to be unseen by bees which means red flowers are pollinated by other means.  So if you hauled off and planted the most colorful garden you could imagine, the bees might fly right on by and miss it. What a shame.  Believe it or not, bees tend to be drawn to flowers that are good at reflecting UV light.  Flowers that are white or light in color are great bee attractors.  And, if you take the “violet” out of ultraviolet, you very well might have a bee’s favorite color. If the lavender in our front yard is any indication, I’d be planting rows of violet colored flowers if I needed the bees.

Okay, okay!  Shut up and tell me what Bees and Butterflies will like!

Plants for butterflies:

• Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii) – The name kinda make you say duh, huh!
• Bee Balm (Monarda didyma)
• Lantana (many varieties available, natives, hybrids, shrubs and creepers)
• Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia), annual
• Milk Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
• Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans), perennial
• Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), perennial
• Red Pentas (Pentas lanceolata) Pentas come in a variety of colors, but the red ones seemed most popular with the butterflies I saw.
• Zinnias

Host Plants:

• • Citrus (lemon, orange, satsuma, etc.)
  • Dutchman’s Pipe (Aristolochia spp.)
  • Fennel, Dill, Parsley, or Queen Anne’s Lace
  • Passion Vine (Passiflora incarnata and other species)

Plants for Bees:

• Anise hyssop
• Aster
• Basil
• Chives & Garlic Chives
• Clover
• Cucumber
• Coreopsis
• Lavender
• Marigold
• Melons
• Milkweed
• Oregano
• Sunflower
• thistle
• Thyme

Like I said, bees aren’t all that picky, so as long as you plant a few that they like, you should have a great harvest.

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focusing on this year.   The previous owner poured a concrete pad in the back yard that seems to have been intended as a basketball court.  This area gets some prime sun and it seems a waste to shoot hoops here.  After all, isn’t that what a driveway is for?  So we have been using it as a dumping ground for the grass killing detritus of our small-scale logging operation.

However, we still have a concrete pad in full view of our eating area that I have been agonizing over.  Last year we put some raised beds there, but only so we could grow tomatoes and peppers,  not to create an oasis as I hope to do.

When I opened up the April 2009 issue of Organic Gardening magazine I found my inspiration.  The idea is a “potager” which is French for kitchen garden.  However, this is no 10X20 rectangle with veggies all in a row.  This is someplace you want to sit and breathe deeply.   I know you would love to see a picture of this paradise, but unfortunately you either have to buy the issue or wait until May is on the newstands and check organicgardening.com because there isn’t a picture on the site.  However if you are interested in making food production pretty, it could be five bucks well spent.

If you have been gardening for any amount of time you know that raised beds are the buzz now.  They are great for lots of reasons: you can start earlier because the soil is warmer than that in the ground, you can really control the quality of soil which helps to eliminate some types of disease and control weeds, and if you size them well they are much easier to work.  As you can see from the pictures, we have given them a shot. Not a pretty sight.  Yes, they did all of the above, but MAN they are ugly!!!

The goal of a potager is to create a garden that is both edible and beautiful.  This is partially accomplished by structure.  The garden is very tidy and ordered.  It is saved from being uptight by curving shapes that soften it.  There are trellises with vines like peas and beans  growing up them for a vertical element and (edible) nastursiums spilling over the sides.  Herbs are sprinkled throughout, which are beautiful in their own right and will flower if you can resist snipping them off for pesto.   Flowers are  incorporated solely because they are beautiful, though did you know you can eat pansies or that marigolds are a great insect deterrent?

The wow factor of the potager in the magazine is the brick pathway throughout.  It really finishes it.   I don’t think concrete will have the same effect, so I am working on that.  Plants are getting moved around, varieties are changed, seeds are being tucked into pots of dirt as I try to decide  how to make it a place of beauty and veggies, and that will be revised over and over until planting day.   The reality is, here in Western Massachusetts we still have the possibility of snow even past the first day of Spring.  My hope lies in the fact that today I was able to finally get a trowel into the ground and plant my first seeds of Bright Lights Swiss Chard.  There is still plenty of  time to dream.

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