If you visit Ashcombe this season, you can't help but notice our colorful display gardens. You may also note some recent changes.

In the fall of 1999 a team of Ashcombe associates set about to expand and renovate the gardens adjacent to the parking lot of our store. We pooled our ideas, built new paths, designed new beds and finished planting in the spring of 2000.

These gardens are designed to provide ideas and inspiration for gardeners. They enable visitors to see mature specimens of many plants we sell and demonstrate how plants can be used in home landscapes.

Several new theme beds have been developed. One area is devoted to habitat gardening ó demonstrating how beautiful gardens can be developed that will attract and provide homes for wildlife. There are three separate beds: a Butterfly Garden, a Hummingbird Garden and a Bird Garden.

The Ashcombe gardens have come into full glory this summer. If you visit our store I invite you to take a few extra moments and visit our gardens. Go through the new picket fence, stroll down the stone paths, relax on a bench or picnic on a table and gather ideas you can use in your own gardens. I am sure you will enjoy them.
 

BUTTERFLY GARDENING

In this edition, I will highlight one of our theme beds - The Butterfly Garden, sharing the thoughts and ideas that went into its design. With this information you can create a butterfly garden of your own.

Butterflies alighting on one flower and then the next bring graceful movement and dazzling color to the garden. Every gardener feels lucky when these winged creatures visit.

Butterfly presence does not need to be left to chance however. You can easily attract them to your backyard. Particular plantings actually encourage butterflies to visit, return and even set up residence. Your backyard, patio or window sill can become a haven for butterflies.

Creating habitat for butterflies will also help to preserve butterfly populations. Butterfly populations across the face of the earth have dramatically declined in recent decades largely due to development of land for human use. Many species are endangered and others are less plentiful than they used to be. Butterflies are closely linked to their environment. 

Drastic changes to the ecosystem can be devastating to a localized population or species. By providing food, shelter and water in your garden, you can help support butterfly populations.

Gardening for butterflies is a suspenseful art, a bit like holding a picnic and wondering if your invited guests will show up. Here are some tips for success.

CHOOSE A SUNNY LOCATION

Ample sunshine is the foremost consideration. Butterflies avoid shady areas. Thus positioning your butterfly garden in as much sun as possible will maximize the number of butterfly visitors. The Ashcombe Butterfly Garden is in full sun.

Sun is extremely important for butterflies. Butterflies need sun to keep their bodies warm enough so they can fly. Only when their body temperature is about 85-100°F can they fly well. When the air temperature is cooler than this, they bask in the sun to warm themselves to effective flight temperature. This is why on cloudy days you may not see butterflies at all. 

They are perching, waiting for the sun. Butterflies use early morning sunlight for basking on sun-warmed rocks, bricks or gravel paths. As morning temperatures rise, they begin visiting their favorite nectar flowers, but always in sunlit areas of the garden.

You can help butterflies by providing some rocks or evergreens in your garden in spots that get sun early in the day. The rocks or evergreens will absorb the heat from the sun, and the butterflies can perch on them to bask, warm up and start flying earlier.

As avid gardeners know, sun is also important to the flowers. Many perennials and other larval food plants grow best in full sun. The amount of nectar production in their flowers can be determined by the amount of light they receive. Also in sun, larval food plants will provide more fresh leaves for hungry caterpillars.

PROVIDE SHELTER

A butterfly garden should be planted in a location that is sheltered from the prevailing winds. This helps butterflies in two ways: they are not cooled by breezes, and they do not have to expend extra energy fighting wind currents as they try to fee, mate and lay eggs. Warm, protected, sunny places are particularly important to butterflies in spring and fall, when the nights are cooler and it might take them longer to heat to a level at which they can fly.

Warm sheltered areas will also help flowers. Taller species will be protected from blowing over, many species will bloom earlier in spring and others will continue blooming later in fall. This will extend the time that nectar is available for more months of the year.

Shelter can be provided by a row of shrubs or trees, especially evergreens, placed so as to protect the garden from prevailing winds. Consider planting a windscreen of shrubs or trees, such as lilac, butterfly bush, or viburnums   all plants that provide nectar for butterflies. A fence of rock wall can also be effective.

GROW LOTS OF NECTAR PLANTS

The main food of adult butterflies is nectar from flowers. As they gather nectar, they also inadvertently do some pollination. Certain flowers are more appealing to butterflies than others and you can find lists of recommended perennials and annuals in The Perennial Plant Gallery. 

Luckily, many of our most loved annuals and perennials are top-notch nectar sources. While native American species play an important role as host plants for hungry butterfly caterpillars, most adult butterflies have cosmopolitan tastes, feeding as readily on the nectar filled flowers of our own native bee balm, Monarda didyma, as the nectar filled flowers of Sedum specabile, a Chinese native.

A butterfly garden's style is not as important as its content. Butterflies seem especially attracted to gardens boasting generous patches of a given nectar flower. Given a choice among equally appealing flowers, butterflies usually choose those that are most abundant. Thus don't settle for one or two specimens of an especially popular nectar flower. Try growing three or more patches of the same plant and watch the swallowtails drift from clump to clump Also, have nectar plants of various heights, for small species of butterflies often stay low, while larger species often prefer to stay high when feeding.

Be sure that your garden offers nectaring flowers throughout the blooming season Plan for a succession of blooms throughout the season, so that from late spring on through autumn an abundance of excellent butterfly plants come into bloom.

GROW CATERPILLAR FOOD PLANTS

If you want more butterflies in your garden, provide food for caterpillars (the larval stage of butterflies) as well. They require a different menu than adult butterflies. Caterpillars eat the leaves and sometimes flowers and seeds of certain plants. They are often highly selective in their tastes, and some species will eat only one species of plant. Thus, you need to provide specific plants for certain species of caterpillars.

It is actually the adult female butterfly that chooses these plants and then lays her eggs on them. So by planting larval food plants you will attract egg-laying females to your garden. Many larval plants are wildflowers, weeds and grasses that belong in an informal setting, not in a flower border. You may want to designate a separate area for this, away from the main flower garden.

CREATE A MUD PUDDLE

Have you ever seen several butterflies all gathered around a puddle or damp place? Some butterflies like to drink from the wet edges of mud puddles or wet sandy areas. This is a common behavior called puddling. When doing this they are ingesting important minerals and nutrients needed for survival and reproduction. Puddling sites are often along dirt roads or paths through fields, where water regularly accumulates and then evaporates, thus concentrating minerals.

The Ashcombe Butterfly Garden has a shallow rubber lined pool filled wit water, rocks and soil to attract butterflies. Consider making a mud puddle in a corner of your garden or fill a bowl with wet sand and sink it in the ground.

DO NOT USE PESTICIDES

Butterfly gardeners should not use insecticides. Butterflies are insects, so pesticides that rid your garden of insect pests will also red your garden of butterflies. Chemical warfare kills indiscriminately: butterflies, their larvae and their natural predators are all destroyed. This includes the use of the bacterial insecticide BT, Bacillus thuringiensis. It will kill butterfly larvae.

There are many alternative, safe ways to control unwanted visitors. Handpick voracious insects of knock them off plants with water from the hose. You can also move offending butterfly caterpillars to other acceptable host plants nearby. When necessary, use a homemade spray of soapsuds, garlic, chives and Tabasco to control insects like aphids. Organic gardeners develop a tolerance for a chewed leaf or blossom.

Making a butterfly garden is easy and provides abundant beauty and enjoyment. Using these simple ideas you can make your garden irresistible to these gentle winged creatures. You will soon find that the air is alive with these flying flowers.