continued from page 4
ing on the native plants in your yard.
So first of all, grow native!
Butterflies need two types of plants:
nectar sources for the adult butterflies and
food sources for the caterpillars. Now,
don’t react in horror! Caterpillars in your
butterfly garden are a good thing. Yes,
they may eat your milkweed to the
ground, but isn’t that why you planted
milkweed in the first place?
Milkweeds, or other plants that get
eaten by caterpillars, are what are called
“host plants.” In fact, if you really want to
attract butterflies, having lots of host
plants is the way to go. You’ll not only
enjoy watching the adults flirt and court
each other, but you’ll see the entire life
cycle: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and but-
terfly. Most butterflies are very picky
about where they’ll lay their eggs. If they
lay their eggs on the wrong kind of plant,
the larvae will die before they can become
adult butterflies, so host plants are critical-
ly important.
By planting host plants, and resisting
the urge to pinch off the caterpillars,
you’re creating a garden of paradise for
butterflies. Host plants are as diverse as
the butterflies. Our native Emory oaks
and gray oaks serve as the host plant for
the rare Poling’s hairstreak, while the
mistletoe growing in the oaks is the host
plant for the beautiful great purple hair-
streak. Tiny brown skippers lay their eggs
on native grasses. Bright yellow and
orange sulphurs and tiny blues prefer
plants in the pea family such as sennas,
daleas and kidneywood.
When you’re in your garden, watch
what the butterflies are doing. If they
bounce from plant to plant, ignoring the
flowers, but landing on the stem or leaves
to curve their abdomen around to touch
the plant, you’re watching a female lay
eggs. You’ll be surprised at the number of
“weeds,” such as tansymustard and pep-
pergrass, that are actually important host
plants for butterflies.
If you want to help with the conserva-
tion of monarch butterflies, be sure your
garden is full of milkweeds. Although we
have at least eight species of milkweeds in
this region, the monarchs seem to prefer
the broadleaf milkweed (Asclepias latifolia).
This perennial stands 2 to 3 feet tall and
has broad, rounded leaves on a single
stem. Broadleaf milkweeds are common
in fields and along roadsides. Although not
commercially available, you can try prop-
agating them for your garden from seeds
or cuttings. Go to the Monarch Watch
website (monarchwatch.org) for more
information about growing milkweeds.
Most (but not all) adult butterflies sip
nectar fro m flowers. They tend to like
brightly colored flowers that are flat or
have “landing platforms” for them to
perch on as they feed. Butterflies are
almost always seen nectaring on verbena,
thistles, lantana, mistflower and salvias.
If you have a damp spot, you might try
putting in a buttonbush or a patch of bas-
ketflower. Buttonbush is a mid-sized
shrub that produces clusters of white
flowers about the size (and shape) of a
ping-pong ball, while basketflower is a tall
(2- to 3-foot) member of the sunflower
family with purple and white blossoms.
Both plants will astound you with the
number and variety of butterflies and
other insect pollinators that they attract.
Of course, herbaceous plants aren’t
the only thing you’ll want in your butter-
fly garden. To attract butterflies early in
the spring, be sure to have a mountain
laurel in your garden. These evergreen
shrubs produce clusters of grape-scented
blossoms that swarm with swallowtails,
skippers and ladies. In the summer, tiny
blues will skip and dance through the
stems of kidneywood and stop ever so
briefly to nectar at spikes of white flowers.
When planning your butterfly garden,
don’t just concentrate on plants.
Butterflies are sun-loving creatures, so
make sure that your garden is situated in
an open, sunny area. Your efforts will be
greatly appreciated if you allow the but-
terflies some bare spots or large, flat
stones where they can bask in the sun. If
you can provide small patches of moist
soil or sand, you may see large numbers
of blues, sulphurs and swallowtails con-
gregating and feeding on the minerals in
the soil. This behavior is called “pud-
dling.” Puddles of butterflies are always
fun to come across. They’ll rise in a cloud
at the slightest disturbance, but settle back
to their puddle in a minute or two.
As mentioned before, not all butterflies
are nectar feeders. Some feed exclusively
on rotting fruit, carrion or sap from trees.
While leaving carrion in your garden
may be taking your devotion to butterflies
a bit too far, you can enhance your gar-
den with a simple “butterfly feeder”
made of a large, flat dish suspended from
the branch of a tree. Place rotten
bananas, the rind from melons or other
overripe fruit in the dish, and watch the
butterflies come. Fruit feeders include the
glorious red-spotted purple, mourning
cloaks and hackberry emperors.
You may see butterfly houses adver-
tised in garden catalogs. These are pretty,
and they’re fun, but there’s no real evi-
dence that butterflies will use them. Save
your money, and buy more rotten
bananas.
If you’re serious about your butterfly
garden, you may want to have it certified
as a Monarch Waystation. The Monarch
Waystation Program encourages people
across the United States to offset the loss
of milkweeds and nectar sources in natu-
ral habitats by creating “waystations” in
home gardens, schools, parks, along road-
sides or on unused plots of lands. These
waystations provide critical resources
such as milkweeds and nectar plants for
the monarch butterflies as they make
their annual migration from their sum-
mer homes in the north to their overwin-
tering sites in Mexico and back again in
the spring.
Butterfly gardens are good for the soul
and good for the butterflies. So take a
walk through your garden, and see what
you can do to provide food and shelter for
your butterflies. Dump the pesticides, and
take pride in your ragged plants and the
caterpillars they produce. If you need
some suggestions for good butterfly
plants, visit the Chihuahuan Desert
Nature Center’s botanical gardens or give
us a call at the Chihuahuan Desert
Research Institute at 432.364.2499. We
love to talk about butterflies!
An earlier version of this story was heard on
KRTS, Marfa Public Radio as an episode of
“Nature Notes.”
The Chinati Foundation is a contemporary
art museum founded by the artist Donald
Judd. The collection includes permanent,
large-scale installations by a limited number
of artists. Special exhibitions and programs
are also hosted throughout the year.
Due to the nature of Chinati’s exhibitions, most of the
artwork is accessible by guided tour only. Advance
reservations are required to guarantee admission.
Contact www.chinati.org or 432 729 4362.
HOURS AND TOUR INFORMATION
Daily
Donald Judd’s 15 Works in Concrete, open viewing 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Free
Wednesday through Sunday
Full Collection Tour,10:00 AM - 4:00 PM (break from 12:30 - 2:00 PM)
Includes all works in the permanent collection: Judd, Kabakov, Long, Rabinowitch, Chamberlain, Flavin,
Arnarsson, Wesley, Horn, Andre, Oldenburg & van Bruggen.
$25 Adult, $10 Student
Selections Tour 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Selected exhibitions from the permanent collection: Judd, Flavin, Chamberlain.
$20 Adult, $10 Student
Artillery Sheds Tour 3:45- 4:15 PM
Judd’s 100 works in mill aluminum, also shown on both the Full Collection and Selections Tour.
$10 Adult, $5 Student
Tour admission is free to Chinati members, students 17 and under, and residents of the tri-county area.
UPCOMING SPECIAL EVENTS
*Guerilla Gardening & Bike Ride
Sunday, July 8, 8:00 PM, Chinati Arena courtyard and garden
*Free Summer Art Classes for Area Students Preschool through Grade 8
July 16 - August 10, Chinati ArtLab
*Sunrise at Chinati
Saturday, September 2, 7:00 - 8:30 AM
*Chinati Weekend
Friday, October 5 - Sunday, October 7
1 Cavalry Row Marfa Texas 79843 www.chinati.org 432 729 4362
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2012
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