Plant Sale: This Saturday

Today’s post was written by Soni, horticulturalist for our Butterfly Center. She and the other employees are hard at word preparing for our upcoming Plant Sale on October 2.

I’m sure not very many of you are thinking of rolling up your sleeves and heading into the blazing heat of summer to do a little gardening. What you should do is start thinking ahead to fall, planning your garden for when the weather cools off and you can once again step outside of the air conditioning without having a heat stroke. If your garden needs a perk up after this summer, you should head over to the Cockrell Butterfly Center’s Fall Plant Sale which will be this Saturday, October 2, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., on the 7th level of the parking garage at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Coneflowers

photo credit: Randy Son Of Robert

Twice a year we have a sale where we carefully select just the right plants for you to put in your garden to attract butterflies and their offspring. How do you go about attracting butterflies and their offspring? Well, first of all, you need lots and lots of nectar plants, the more variety the better. The best nectar plants are those with small tubular flowers arranged in clusters, sometimes with brightly colored petals that serve as a target to alert the butterflies that, “Hey! There’s food over here!” Butterflies survive on a liquid diet because of their specialized mouthparts, collectively called a proboscis. It looks like a coiled straw which they unravel to poke down inside flowers and consume the sugary liquid. Some examples of excellent nectar plants are Coneflower (Echinacea sp.), Black and Brown Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia sp.), Native Gayflower (Liatris sp.), Lantana, Verbena, Porterweed (Stachytarpheta sp.), Salvia, Heliotrope, Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia) and many, many more.

Did you think I forgot to mention their offspring? Of course not, that is my favorite part of butterfly gardening! Let’s back up for a minute so you can see the big picture. A butterfly’s life is comprised of four stages. In each stage the creature looks totally different. The whole lifecycle is called complete metamorphosis (meta means change, and morph means form). The first stage is the egg, which was laid by its thoughtful mother on a very important plant called a host plant. (Did you know butterflies are really good botanists? The story gets even weirder. They can tell plants apart by tasting them with their feet!) When the egg hatches, a caterpillar (otherwise known as a larva) crawls out and immediately eats the egg shell. Then, the caterpillar looks around and wonders, “What else is there to eat around here?” Well, little friend, you are sitting right on top of it. The host plant is the food, the life support, for the caterpillar. Without host plants we would not have butterflies!

Monarch Butterfly

photo credit: mikebaird

Each type of butterfly corresponds to a different type of host plant. For example, the well known Monarch butterfly only lays its eggs on the Milkweed plant (Asclepias sp.). The Monarch caterpillars will not eat Parsley or Dill, but you know who will? The Black Swallowtail, that’s who. Other host plants that attract our native butterflies are: citrus species, rue (Ruta graveolens), and wafer ash (Ptelea trifoliate) for the Giant Swallowtail; Dutchman’s pipevine (Aristolochia fimbriata and A. elegans) for Pipevine and Polydamas Swallowtails; spicebush (Lindera benzoin) and sassafras (Sassafras albidum) for the Spicebush Swallowtail; sennas (Cassia sp.) and partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculate) for Sulphurs; and passionvines (Passiflora sp.) for the Gulf Fritillary.

The third stage of metamorphosis is the chrysalis (or pupa), which is what the adult butterfly (the fourth and final stage) emerges out of.

When you combine nectar and host plants in your landscape you will not only increase your chances of seeing butterflies, but you can also have the experience of witnessing the amazing process of metamorphosis first hand. If you don’t want to see plants that are chewed up, you can omit the host plants, or place them behind other plants, however, watching a butterfly lay eggs and watching caterpillars grow is pretty cool.

We will have the majority of the plants mentioned above at the plant sale, plus many more (a “complete” list is on the website). The selections we have made are for growing in Houston and the surrounding areas, a lot being native plants. You can also learn about gardening for butterflies at the sale from our knowledgeable staff and volunteers. Hope to see you there!

Here are some tips for attending the plant sale:
1. Get there early. Don’t wait and expect to have a lot to choose from an hour before we close.
2. We will have wagons for customers to cart their plants to their cars, but if you have your own, bring it.
3. We take cash, check and credit cards.
4. The lines are long, but look at it as a time to make new friends or learn something new.

Today’s post was written by Soni, horticulturalist for our Butterfly Center. She and the other employees are hard at word preparing for our upcoming Plant Sale on April 10.

photo credit: Randy Son Of Robert

Got butterflies? Probably not, if your garden suffered freeze damage over the past few months. After this unusually long and cold winter, many of us have lost plants, especially species that are more tropical and not adapted to freezing temperatures.

But now that winter is finally behind us, it’s time to replant! Butterfly gardeners won’t want to miss the Cockrell Butterfly Center’s Spring Plant Sale. It’s happening soon: Saturday, April 10, 2010 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., on the 7th level of the parking garage at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Some of you may be seasoned butterfly gardeners, but others may be asking, “How DO you ‘garden’ for butterflies?” It’s quite simple. For a successful butterfly garden you need two types of plant: nectar and host plants.

Coneflowers and Rudbeckias
photo credit: Per Ola Wiberg ~ Powi

Thanks to their specialized mouthparts – a long, thin, straw-like proboscis – adult butterflies can only consume liquid food. The blooms of nectar plants produce a sugary liquid (nectar) that butterflies sip to give them the energy to fly, mate, and produce eggs. Most nectar plants have colorful flowers borne in showy clusters. Some examples of good nectar plants for our area are Porter Weed, Echinacea (Purple Cone Flower), Zinnias, Rudbeckia (Brown and Black-eyed Susans), Monarda (Bee Balm), Lantana, Salvias, Eupatorium (Mistflower), Cuphea, Buddleia (Butterfly Bush), and Tithonia (Mexican Sunflower), among many others.

Eastern Black
Swallowtail Caterpillar
photo credit: cyanocorax

In contrast to the adults, baby butterflies, aka caterpillars, have chewing mouthparts and eat leaves. Many butterflies are quite choosy in their caterpillar stage, and can only survive and grow on specific plants, which we call host plants. For example, Monarch caterpillars will only eat Asclepias (Milkweed); they cannot and will not eat anything else. Female butterflies seek out the appropriate host plants for their babies when they are laying eggs. Some host plants that can be included in your butterfly garden are Asclepias (for Monarchs and Queen Butterflies); Passionvines (for Gulf Fritillaries and if you’re lucky, Zebra Longwings); Citrus and Rue (for Giant Swallowtails); Dill, Parsley, and Fennel (for Black Swallowtails); Aristolochia aka Pipevine (for Pipevine and Polydamas Swallowtails); and Cassia aka Senna (for Sulphur Butterflies). If you see caterpillars eating these plants, rejoice! You will soon have lots of beautiful butterflies coming to your nectar plants.

Some of you may think you don’t want caterpillars eating away in your garden. If so, you can avoid host plants and include only nectar plants. However, you’ll get more butterflies if you plant both. We predict that soon you’ll be treasuring every caterpillar!

Many of the nectar and host plants listed above will be available at our sale. We strive to provide butterfly-attracting plants that are either native or naturalized in Texas, and that perform well in the Houston area. Our sale is also a good place to learn more about butterfly gardening. Several experts will be on hand to answer questions and to help you choose plants.