Spring Plant Sale!! This Saturday, 4/9

Published by Steven on April 5, 2011 at 11:03 am in Plants & Insects

The Cockrell Butterfly Center is having its Spring Plant Sale Saturday, April 9, 2011, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the 7th level of the parking garage at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Make sure to get there early as plants do sell out! This post is by Soni, one of our Butterfly Center horticulturalists.

See more photos from the Spring Plant Sale on Flickr.

We have nectar plants and host plants to attract butterflies to your garden. This year, we have been working on propagating more native plants. This includes:

Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
Giant Coneflower (Rudbeckia maxima)
Mexican Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella)
American Basket Flower (Centaurea Americana
Creeping Spot Flower (Acmella oppositifolia)
Maypop Passion Vine (Passiflora incarnata)
And others!

Tithonia
See more photos from the Spring Plant Sale on Flickr.

Some of you are probably seasoned butterfly gardeners, but some may be asking yourselves:

How do you garden for butterflies?

The answer is really simple. There are two types of plants that you need to have for a successful butterfly garden: nectar and host plants. Nectar plants have blooms that produce a sugary liquid that butterflies need to consume in order to survive. Some examples of these plants are Porter Weed, Echinacea (Purple Cone Flower), Zinnias, Rudbeckia (Brown and Black-eyed Susans), Monarda (Bee Balm), Lantana, Salvias, Eupatorium (Mistflower), Cuphea, Buddleia, and Tithonia (Mexican Sunflower) among many others.

Gaillardia
See more photos from the Spring Plant Sale on Flickr.

The other type of plants that you need are host plants. Some examples of these are: Asclepias (Milkweed), Passionvine, Citrus, Rue, Fennel, Aristolochia (Pipevine), and Cassias. These are plants that the female butterflies lay eggs on. Certain species of butterflies will only lay their eggs on specific plants such as the Monarch, which only lays eggs on Milkweed. If you see caterpillars on these plants, that is a good thing! Those caterpillars are baby butterflies! The host plant is their food source, which means that the caterpillar eats the leaves. If you want a garden to attract butterflies, but don’t want insects eating away at the foliage, just use nectar plants.

Create a Local Butterfly Habitat!

A lot of these plants are native to Texas and the good thing about this sale is that the Cockrell Butterfly Center specifically chooses plants that will attract the native butterflies and will perform well in the Houston area. If you are not sure what to do or have any questions about gardening for butterflies, our experts will be at the sale to answer them. Come early, the plants go fast!

Cure Nature Deficit Disorder – Take Your Kids Outside!

Published by Nancy on February 15, 2009 at 12:23 pm in Plants & Insects

Building a compost heap

Every week I volunteer at a local elementary school in the arboretum and gardens on the schoolgrounds. The PTA environmental chair and I recently turned an area into a vegetable garden and built a large compost bin. We’ve told the teachers about what we’re doing, and some of them have brought their classes out to help us plant.

The kids are enthusiastic diggers and rakers; we’ve had to buy more kid-sized spades and rakes to prevent struggles to “have my turn.” They love to find june bug grubs (bad for baby plants) and earthworms (good for the soil).

They are eager to start the compost pile and feel how warm it gets as it decomposes. Most of them have never planted seeds before, and are amazed to learn what a baby radish or a seedling broccoli plant looks like. This week the sugar snap peas are getting ripe, and I worry that there will not be enough pods to go around to the class that planted them – and I know everyone is going to want to eat one!

Laying out the compost bins

Helping the kids to plant a garden takes me back many years. I fondly remember helping my parents to tend our vegetable garden in Calgary’s short growing season (no tomatoes there!). My father and I would often go out with a flashlight after dark to pick the slugs off the beans and lettuce, dropping them into a can of salty water. The few ears of corn we got each year would be relished as a special treat, cooked and eaten only minutes after they were picked. Besides harvesting our garden crops, we would also go out looking for wild june berries (called Saskatoons in Canada), tiny wild strawberries (so flavorful), or crabapples and chokecherries that my mother rendered into jelly or syrup.

I was very lucky to grow up when and where I did. But surely all kids should have a chance to learn how plants grow and what bugs live in their backyard or the overgrown area behind their fence. Things are different today – kids are busier, more sheltered, and many of their parents are uncomfortable in the outdoors. These days many people turn their gardening over to a landscaping crew, and their kids never work out in the yard (in contrast, us kids had to mow and edge our huge lawn all summer, and rake up all the leaves in the fall – for no pay!).

Today people grow up so distant from nature that it no longer surprises me to meet a grown woman (like the garden club member who visited recently) who hadn’t the faintest idea that butterflies come from caterpillars.

Some of you may have heard about Last Child in the Woods, a book by Richard Loew that has gotten a lot of attention over the last few years. Loew coined the term “Nature deficit disorder” and convincingly argues that many people today suffer from it, to the detriment of themselves and the world.

I recommend the book, and most of all, I recommend sending your kids to play and work outdoors (if possible, on their own – or if not, with you to guide them).

A day in the life of “Bugs on Wheels”

Published by Laurie on February 6, 2009 at 11:50 am in Plants & Insects

“Bugs on Wheels” is the ever-so-popular outreach program that sweeps Erin and me away from the office on many days. Our very first program was on Feb. 13, 2006 and needless to say, it was a HIT! If you have ever wondered what goes on at a “Bugs on Wheels,” wonder no more because you are about to go on a trip with us right now.

On a typical morning, Erin and I get to the office around 7:00 or 7:30. We have to take care of our other jobs before we can hit the road. Erin sorts through the insect zoo while I release butterflies.

Next, we have to get all the critters ready to go. All of the bugs that we take with us live in the containment room, so we do not have to take any away from the beautiful displays in the entomology hall. Everyone gets loaded up in their critter carriers and we stack them all in a large Rubbermaid container with wheels.

Then we are out to my car and on the road. We have traveled as far away as Crosby and as close as just around the corner. Set up is really easy, so we typically get to a school 10-15 minutes early. Normally, we have to sign in at the front office where we almost always get bombarded with students and teachers asking “What is that??” We prefer to set up in a classroom away from others, but there have been times when we had to fight the noisy crowds in a library or a cafeteria.

Typically we do 30 minute presentations, especially if the students are younger than 3^rd grade. The older kids tend to sit still longer, allowing us to gab away for 45 minutes to an hour. Once the kids enter the class, the first challenge is to sit them all in nice straight rows. This part is hard for kids of all ages because they are distracted by the bugs of course!

Erin and I take turns introducing ourselves to each class. We tell them that we are from the Houston Museum of Natural Science and that we work in the Cockrell Butterfly Center. We used to ask if anyone has been to HMNS, but we stopped doing that because every kid wants to tell a story of their visit here.

We always like to ask the kids questions about insects before we begin; stuff like: How many legs? (6) How many body parts? (3: head, thorax, abdomen) What do they use to smell? (antennae) What kind of skeleton do they have? (exoskeleton) Do they have wings? (some do)

After this introduction, Erin and I turn almost invisible because the bugs totally steal the show!

First, we talk about all of the insects: hissing cockroaches, 3 walking sticks, deer – horned stag beetle, and the giant long – legged katydid. I have to say the most impressive is the katydid which the kids really love. We bring up important facts about each bug and ask lots of questions to the audience. Things like camouflage, mimicry, environment, adaptations, and diet are among some of the things we like to talk about.

Next, we discuss arachnids and compare and contrast them with insects. The two arachnids we show the kids are the whiptail scorpion, aka vinegaroon, and Rosie, our rose-hair tarantula. This section gives us the opportunity to clear up some misconceptions about tarantulas. Most people think they are soooooo venomous and cannot believe we actually hold one.

Lastly, we pull out the giant African millipede and have them guess what it is. Every now and then we will get a correct guess, but the majority of the guesses are: caterpillar, snake, worm, snail, rollie pollie, and centipede. We actually have a preserved centipede that we can compare the millipede to and show the differences.

The best part about our presentation is that every kid, if they want to, can touch all of the bugs with the exception of the vinegaroon and the stag beetle, who don’t like to be touched.

Once we are all finished, we open the floor up to questions and eventually move on to the next group! Some days we do six, 30-minute presentations and others we do three, 1-hour presentations.

photo credit: challiyan

For us, this program is very rewarding. One of the best things is when a kid says “YUCK” when they first see the bug, but after we persuade them to touch it they think it’s cute. Also, helping kids understand that bugs aren’t so bad and many of the big and scary ones are just trying to protect themselves from predators and that they don’t really want to hurt us.

The most priceless moment is the initial excitement they get when they first see each bug – and the escalated joy when they find out they can actually touch the bug!

For all you parents and teachers out there, I have great news! Our Bugs on Wheels program has expanded to three different and unique programs.

The program I just explained is now considered “Amazing Arthropods.” One of our new programs, “Butterflies and Moths,” introduces the amazing cycle of metamorphosis and shows how butterflies and moths differ from each other and from other insects. The other program, “Plants and Pollination,” uses a giant flower model, puppets, a bee hive, and real fruits and vegetables to demonstrate the importance of pollination to the plant kingdom and especially to the foods we eat.

If you are interested in our programs, please feel free to leave a comment here, or contact us at bow@hmns.org.

The Sphinx Moth: A Work of Art

Published by Nancy on December 1, 2008 at 9:30 am in Plants & Insects

Today we have a special guest blog from Chad Erpelding, Assistant Professor of Art at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He teaches 2D Design and Painting there. This fall the Cockrell Butterfly Center is hosting an exhibit of some of his students’ paintings that were inspired by sphinx moths. Here is what he has to say about the project.

The overlap between art and science is a subject rich with potential and currently being investigated by many artists. Damien Hirst suspends animal specimens in large tanks of formaldehyde. Olafur Eliasson, who is currently having a major survey of his work at the Dallas Museum of Art, explores weather systems and natural phenomena. Mel Chin worked closely with a scientist in realizing his piece Revival Field, which uses plants to remove toxic metals from a polluted site. So when Dr. William Godwin, entomologist at Stephen F. Austin State University and adjunct curator at HMNS, brought up the idea of a joint project between the Biology Department and the School of Art at SFA, I jumped at the opportunity.

We decided to organize a competition for the art students centered on sphinx moths (family Sphingidae), several members of which are found locally in Nacogdoches and throughout east Texas (see Nancy’s recent blog on these fascinating moths.) Dr. Godwin gave a lecture on the characteristics and life cycle of sphinx moths, giving the students the base of knowledge needed to understand their subject. From here, I stressed to the students the importance of finding the balance between accuracy towards the moths and the inventiveness that happens in the studio. The restrictions we put on the entries were only on size and weight of the pieces themselves. We wanted the students to have the freedom to explore their own interpretations and realize their creative impulses.

I was thrilled with some of the pieces the students created. Carolyn Norton, a graduate student from Lufkin, won first place for her piece “Sonic Defense,” an ink drawing that follows the paths of a bat and moth in battle, including an explosion of scales – a trick that moths do to fool their predators mid-air.

Margaret Pledger, a senior from Brenham, received second place for her “Pupa Ring,” a copper ring based loosely on the shapes of sphinx moth pupae. Chad Hines, a graduate student from Temple, received third place for his “Sphingidae,” a drawing that simultaneously explores the patterns of the moths and the joys of making marks on paper.

The truly fascinating part of this project for me was to see the many different directions that the artists took. You never know from where inspiration will come. While some of the students looked at the patterns and shapes of the moths, others were interested in their habits or specific characteristics. A few explored broader cultural connections, using the moths as a metaphor for the human experience. Whatever the source, I think this was a great opportunity for both the science and art communities to see how our fields can interact. It encourages us to continue to see the world in new and awe-inspiring ways.

Please be sure to stop and take a look at these interesting works of art on your next visit to the Butterfly Center. They are in the lower level (just around the corner from the mosquito display) and will remain on display until March, 2009.