"The butterfly is a flying flower,
The flower a tethered butterfly."
-Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun

Marion Jacobs of Laguna Beach, California, informed me that the nine cats on her milkweed plant at home have finished it off in record time. She bought a replacement, transferring the remaining larvae onto the full one. She also donated two milkweed plants for the defunct Alta Laguna Park Butterfly Garden that Anthony, the current city gardener, planted for her. Thank you Marion for the kind and thoughtful gift for the Monarchs. I'm sure those plants will be depleted by voracious Monarch caterpillars before the season's over! I also wish to thank Anthony, or "A.C." for his interest in the butterfly garden. Hopefully, he'll be able to resurrect at least some of it, if the City allows him to. 

Here's a nice little vid from Annie's Annuals and Perennials on container gardening for those of you who may be interested. Great planting info for just that one pot you want to put on the patio too.

Watch on Vimeo for better quality

 The container garden is home to several interesting and hard to find plants that were purchased from her online nursery. All plants arrived healthy, well packed, no worse for wear, and fresh for planting. Annie's physical nursery is located in Richmond, California, close to Oakland in the Bay Area. As I assess their usefulness throughout the season in a butterfly garden (at least this one), I'll be commenting on their relative worth.

Let Them Eat Pumpkin!
Pretty soon, and if you are lucky, you may find yourself running out of milkweed. Have Monarch caterpillars decimated your milkweed plants and you can't find anymore? What's a parent to do? Feed them pumpkin! This very informative PDF explains the whys and wherefores of getting your cats to a chrysalis stage after running out of milkweed and none is to be found anywhere. As mentioned in the article, other cucurbits such as squashes, cucumbers, and melons could also be substituted.

WARNING! This is not meant to be a replacement for milkweed! It only helps get those cats in their last instar to the chrysalis stage. Those at lower instars are most likely to die if not fed milkweed. It's kind of like feeding a 17 year old kid only Twinkies to get them by until they turn 18, after which you can legally kick them out of the house: it's not long enough to outright kill them, but will keep them alive long enough until they can be emancipated.

"Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it." 

-Author Unknown


The Missing Monarchs article exposes the threat certain aspects of modern farming practices has on the steep decline of Monarch butterfly populations in the U.S. Scary stuff, but there are things we can do to help stem the tide. Mitigation versus procrastination?

Hopefully, Mexico and the U.S. can work together to protect Monarch butterflies. An L.A. Times article by Tracy Wilkinson. Thanks to Margot Norris who subscribes to this blog for bringing this article to my attention.

CONTAINER TIP:

When using large containers, especially tall varieties, one can save on potting soil (and weight!) by filling the bottom of the the pot with with light materials such as bits of Styrofoam or similar substances. The thought of using packing peanuts crossed my mind, but they may not work very well due to their meringue-like sponginess that would most likely compress with the soil and water weight put on them.

Using empty plastic drink bottles, I line the bottom of the pot, cover the bottles with a piece of landscape fabric or other suitable material to separate the filler from the soil, and then add soil. If there are large empty spaces between the bottles and the sides of the pot, I fill these up with 3/4" gravel. This serves a twofold purpose:

1. It reduces the weight of the pot.
2. It aids in maintaining a healthy root system.

A healthy root system you ask? Yes! replied Le Raconteur des Papillions. Adding a bit of open space at the bottom of the pot allows excess water to freely percolate through the soil medium and out the drain hole(s), thereby eliminating the common effect of waterlogged soil at the container's bottom that happens often with taller vessels, especially for those employing heavy-handed watering regimens. This technique helps to maintain a good soil to water ratio towards the bottom, and air down there allows the roots to breathe much better, in the same manner a Scotsman derives benefits from wearing a kilt. (shudder)

 This pot is taller than it is wide. Soil at the bottom of it tends to stay wet and turn sour, and they can get heavy!

Filling bottom with empty plastic drink bottles.

Adding some gravel around the bottles to eliminate any empty pockets that would cause the landscape fabric to fold in under weight.

Laying of fabric over bottles and gravel.

  Roughly the airspace created by placing the filler at the bottom of the container. One can go as high as one wishes.

 

 ...and here it is planted with a passion vine trained on a trellis to attract Gulf Fritillaries, with some Scabiosas towards the front as general nectar plants.

Broken up chunks of Styrofoam would be a better choice than the gravel, but storage constraints in a mobile home are at a premium. I already use gravel in other ways, so it is already here.

In all of my larger pots I at least add an inch or two of gravel topped off with a bit of landscape fabric in order to keep the soil sweet. One can buy small rolls of this fabric at home improvement stores for a pittance. I don't advise using landscape fabric, also known as geotextile, in the garden, except under gravel areas. Here's why:

Why I Hate Landscape Fabric: An Unfair and Unbalanced Look at Weed Cloth

The Myth of Landscape Fabric