How Does Your Garden Grow?

Since the beginning of time, gardens have quite literally shaped our lives. For survival, inspiration, or "the purest of pleasures", we offer the following suggestions to read, learn and grow.

We thank the Kids Can Press Jumbo Book of Gardening for their permission to reprint the following garden ideas.

Butterfly Gardens

Big or small, your garden can attract butterflies if you provide the right sources of food for all the stages in a butterfly's life - from egg to caterpillar (or larvae) to adult butterfly. You'll need flowers that provide nectar for the adults, plants they like to lay their eggs on, plants that their young caterpillars like to eat, a source of water, shelter from cold wind and bad weather, and some sunning spots.

Butterfly Friendly Flowers:
· Flowers with one solid color rather than mixed colors
· Flower colors in this order: purple, yellow, blue, pink and white
· Single flowers rather than double (frilly) flowers
· Trumpet-shaped flowers
· Flowers with a strong sweet smell to attract butterflies from far away
· Flowers planted in masses or grouped together so that butterflies will notice them when they're flying overhead
· Nectar flowers that bloom at different times to feed butterflies that arrive in your garden at different times of the year

Fairy Garden

Many plants have long been associated with fairies. Plant some in your garden and see if you get any tiny visitors. You'll have to look in your garden at night because fairies sleep during the day. Wearing a four-leaf clover or drinking thyme tea might help you see them.

Fairy Friendly Fauna:
· Oak, Ash, and Hawthorn trees
· Bluebells (or cowslip)
· Forget-Me-Nots
· Foxgloves
· Pansies
· Periwinkles
· Primroses
· Ragwort
· Thyme
· Blue Vervain
· Wood Sorrel
· Ferns
· Toadstools

Night-Blooming Garden

Flowers that bloom at night catch the moon's glow and fill the air with wonderful scents. They also attract lots of nighttime creatures looking for sweet nectar. And while you're watching the flowers bloom, keep an eye out for another nighttime favorite - the lightening bug.

Nighttime Bloomers:
· Moonflower
· Evening Primrose
· Delphinium
· Hibiscus
· Madonna Lily
· Night-scented Catchfly
· Yucca

 

 

Ladybug Garden

The ladybug - along with the earthworm and the bee - is a gardener's natural friend. If you grow the right plants, you'll have ladybugs laying their eggs on them. A week after hatching, the larvae will start gobbling the aphids that are devouring your rose bushes and snap beans, the mealy bugs that are eating your sedums or stonecrops, and the spider mites that are attacking your cucumbers, strawberries or violets.

Ladybug's love …
· Queen Anne's lace
· Daisy cosmos
· Fennel
· Butterfly week
· Nasturtium
· Marigold
· Tansy
· Angelica
· Goldenrod
· Morning Glory
· Thistly
· Dandelion
· Yarrow