Butterfly Garden for Christmas gifts

It's time to think of your gardener friends and loved ones! Give them the gift they will enjoy for years to come. Social Butterflies offers "Wing It!" kits for those who love butterflies and want to attract them to their yards. The kit includes detailed instructions on the requirements of butterflies, how to attract many different species, and 10 packets of free, organically-grown seeds guaranteed to entice lots of beautiful butterflies next season. Only $25.00, shipping included. Please see www.socialbtrflies.com/gardening.html for further information. You may also call Social Butterflies at 434.823.3666 to order.

Celebrate The First National Butterfly Awareness Day!

The Association For Butterflies announces the first National Butterfly Awareness Day June 6, 2009. This day is set aside for all people throughout the United States to celebrate butterflies. "Social Butterflies" www.socialbtrflies.com will be releasing butterflies in Charlottesville, VA. We encourage people to not only release butterflies, but to consider planting a butterfly garden to help attract these beautiful insects. Students may want to release some at their graduation ceremonies. Studies of a butterfly's lifecycle will be encouraged. We want to make people more aware of butterflies and their importance as pollinators. Besides bees, butterflies are the next best pollinators, and as we know, we need pollinators if we like to eat! Releasing butterflies is a sound ecological way to help increase the population during the warm months. Celebrate nature's most beautiful creature on June 6, 2009. Tell your friends about National Butterfly Awareness Day.

Waiting for spring

As we wait out the cold winter days, in the warmth of our homes, I keep thinking about how many more weeks it will be until we see some signs of spring. The grass is a light tan color, the daffodils are just starting to show some green shoots (NO! get back in the ground!) the butterfly bushes are sickly-looking and we crave some sunlight.
One way to help overcome this feeling is by taking a butterfly-related course. Check out the Association For Butterflies' list of courses: Disease in Lepidoptera, Monarch Raising for Teachers, Butterfly Releases for Event Planners and Funeral Professionals, and Butterfly Gardening (How to attract 10 or more species without really trying). I will be conducting the last class, beginning on February 23 for four weeks. This is an online class, where you can access the material at your leisure. If you complete the coursework and pass the quizzes, you will receive a certificate stating that you are a "Certified Butterfly Gardener." See www.forbutterflies.org for more information and a class syllabus.
Also, if you happen to live in the Washington, D.C. area, I will be a guest speaker at the Capital Home and Garden Show at the Dulles Expo Center on February 27-March 1. My topics? Butterflies, of course! See you there! Linda Marchman @ Social Butterflies

No neat and tidy butterfly gardens!

Are you one of those people who feel that they have to conform to "standard" gardening practices? Do you believe that you should follow the "experts" who dictate which flower colors are "in" or "out" this year? Does a weed in your flower bed send you into cardiac arrest? Well, here's some news....if you want to attract butterflies, you can discard all those notions. Butterflies don't care if your garden is neat and tidy, if your flowers are all the same shade of pink, or if there is a thistle growing among the cosmos. In fact, leaving a few weeds in place may help attract even more species of butterflies. A prickly thistle is not only a fine nectar plant, but a host plant for Painted Ladies. A dandelion provides nectar early in the spring, when you might not have many other plants blooming. Wild violets are not only pretty, but are the host plants for Great Spangled Fritillaries, those large and colorful flutterers that appear in June. Of course, you don't want your carefully tended flower areas to begin looking sad and neglected, but it certainly won't hurt to purposely leave some Queen Anne's Lace for the black swallowtails or clover as another nectar source. A weed is only a plant for which a use has yet to be discovered. If you want more butterflies this year, research information about weeds and wildflowers before assaulting them with hoes, rakes or herbicides.