In my part of the world it's a little early right now to plant a garden, but it's not too early to start planning! I've been managing my garden to attract beneficial insects for some time. I want to do what I can to support pollinating insects and attract predators to kill garden pests and eliminate the need for pesticides. I've always been interested in insects and other invertebrates - gardening gives me an excuse to play with mud and bugs, favorite activities of childhood that I've never really outgrown! For me a garden would not be nearly as much fun without a lively invertebrate population to observe.

Last spring my Dad expressed interest in making his yard hospitable to beneficial insects. First we walked Dad's yard to see what assets were already there.

Perennial plants are desireable because they provide shelter for overwintering insects. Already present were a few herbaceous perennials scattered around like Lavender and Garlic Chives, and large numbers of Tiger Lilies, Irises and Yucca. The Yucca and Lavender do not die to the ground in winter, and collect blown-in leaves among them during the cold months. These spots in a yard where leaves are not cleared away are valuable habitat for beneficial insects.

Flowering shrubs and small trees such as Lilac, Redbud, Plum, Rose of Sharon and Butterfly Bush are present. Butterflies benefit from a variety of plants that flower at different times to ensure there is always nectar available. The Redbud is an especially desireable species from a beneficial insect point of view because it is native and it flowers early. Some butterflies are only attracted to native plants so it's important to have some natives in the mix.

The grass in Dad's front yard is pleasing to the eye because it is uniform, but is not that attractive to beneficial insects. In the backyard the lawn is patchy and supports a healthy population of weeds - not such a great thing for humans but valuble for insects because there are lots of small, early blooming flowers such as Violet, Dandelion, Barren Strawberry and Clover. We don't plan on doing anything to "improve" the lawn here.

Improvements made:

I had brought with me some extra herbs from my garden. We planted Korean Hyssop, Lemon Balm, Chocolate Mint, Meadow Rue and Feverfew. See this chart to see why these plants are considered desireable for our purposes. Dad also has a patch of Yarrow that is in the shade and gets run over by the lawn mower frequently and never flowers, so we moved some of that into the sun where it can grow to its full potential.

We spread some mulch around the planted areas over a layer of scrap cardboard and paper to make future weeding easier. We collected fallen branches from the yard that mostly came from neighbors' large trees. I mixed some of the branches in with the mulch - they attract beneficial ground beetles.

June 23, 2013

We didn't plan to wait this long to work on Dad's garden again, but with a camping trip, craft fairs and rain, we didn't manage to get another work day in for awhile. In the meantime on his own Dad added some Bee Balm and Spiderwort that we had been given by another kind gardener. I put several specimens of both of those plants in my garden too.

The other major accomplishment for this day was to build a butterfly puddle. I filled the puddle with sand and lava rock to give the butterflies a porous surface to drink from, and placed flat rocks at the edge for a basking and warming perch. Some of the mulch I was using had been standing around for awhile in plastic buckets and had accumulated rain water which was fermenting in a rather malodorous way. Butterflies like fermented stuff so I poured some of that liquid in there. The puddle was a hit with flies in about five minutes but we'll have to wait and see how many butterflies end up using it. It's near the Butterfly Bush and some Yarrow, plants butterflies particulary love, and it's in a sunny spot so hopefully it will get used.

I also built a similar puddle in my own garden and seeded it with salt, stale beer and bird manure, other things that butterflies like. They are also fond of rotting fruit which I have not added yet. So far I've seen a lot of flies, bees and wasps using it - that's ok, they have to drink too - but haven't seen any butterflies on it yet.

June 30, 2013

A rainstorm interrupted our work the previous Sunday so our goal was to do a better job of mulching around the already planted areas and doing some weeding. I was low on mulch so we used almost finished compost from Dad's compost bin and garden trimmings augmented with cut up fallen tree branches to finish the mulch job. With all the rain we've been having there was plenty of weeding to do!

For the rest of the season, we mainly concetrated on maintenance and additional mulching and composting around Dad's fruit trees. We never did see any butterflies in the puddle we made for them, but one of the rue plants hosted a number of black swallowtail caterpillars. In my own garden, I grow parsley, fennel and other plants that are eaten by black swallowtail caterpillars. I move them to my rue plant and they stay put and eat the rue instead. That saves my edible plants and gives the caterpillars a good habitat. If you are not allergic to it, you might consider growing rue as host plant.

Dad's yard already provided some habitat for beneficial insects before we started working on it, but we feel we made a great improvement in 2013. We're planning on adding more wildflowers and expanding other plantings in 2014! If you want to improve the habitat in your garden, here is some more information on beneficial insects and plants that attract them.

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