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The Blog of Papillon

Chris Schweitzer ’20 • Jun 06, 2020

Part 3 - Herbs and Flowers

Let me first acknowledge that I know there are a lot of NMGs with an interest in butterflies, so I’m counting on getting great suggestions from everyone. I also know that nothing I say here is new in terms of flowers or butterflies. Everything can be found on the internet these days and I’m certainly relying on it to look up lists of flowers.

This blog entry is nothing more than my journey and thought process, with the hope to provide a little entertainment.

My primary focus on selecting the flowers and herbs for the garden is to attract butterflies (duh) and provide food for the caterpillars as they grew, but I also hope to attract other pollinators including bees and hummingbirds. In addition, I want to provide a variety of color and vertical layers throughout the garden and include open space for at least one bench that could be placed for reading and quiet contemplation.

My inspiration comes from the artist van Gogh - the soil as canvas and flowers as pigments. When I was young, I looked on his painting, Wheatfield with Crows, and have never been able to forget the impression it left on me (ha! - see what I did there?). The flowers can splash brush strokes across the garden.
For the past two weeks I’ve been working on the circular south garden. I removed a large bush from the middle of the garden that overpowered and took away from the simple beauty of the multiple rose bushes. Then I dug a trench around the garden and put in a vertical brick barrier to help keep the spread of clover to a minimum.
From the start there were a few flowers I knew I wanted in the garden like Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) and Native Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), plus some herbs to support caterpillars like fennel and dill. I also wanted milkweed. But beyond these I needed research.

To start my list of flowers I picked up a couple of butterfly books: One is the Kaufman Field Guide to Butterflies of North America and another was a recommendation from one of the MG perennials from class. She turned me on to The Life Cycles of Butterflies by Judy Burris & Wayne Richards. Then I went to the internet for lists and pictures from many different resources.

The following is a gallery of flowers. Not all will be planted in the first phase and some may never get planted, but it is a way to view and organize my thoughts.
I recently watched a PBS video on butterflies titled: Sex, Lies, and Butterflies that gave me a little different perspective on some of these amazing insects. If you have the time I suggest watching it at https://www.pbs.org/video/sex-lies-and-butterflies-xayv7a/ 

I hope if anyone has suggestions or advice that you will contact me and help with ideas. In my next post I will give a layout of the proposed garden and any progress, along with some additional thoughts for plantings.

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