Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The Butterfly Garden Project

I have been busy creating a new little flower garden plot around the fountain I put in earlier this year. I dug out a section of lawn, removed the garbage left over from building the house that is ALWAYS hiding under the lawn, added some dillo dirt, mulched it with pea gravel, then added a few plants and a pile of seeds. I just put the seeds in and then it rained last night - My rain dance/voodoo ritual must have actually done something! - so bonus on that!

Here it is:



That grass path behind it will be dug out and replaced with gravel and a stepping stone path. I just haven't gotten that far yet.

OK, so it doesn't look like much yet - use your imagination. The few plants you can see in the plot right now include dwarf gulf muhly, mexican milkweed, mexican oregano that was languishing in a shady spot and moved to the new sun-shiny bed (I split it and cut it all the way back), a Russian Sage, and Big Red penstemon. I also have a few Byzantine Gladiolus bulbs on their way that I am going to throw in the bed. Many of the seeds I added in are Texas natives. It is supposed to be a butterfly/hummingbird garden so I figured the more natives, the better. I also tried to mix up plants that had different bloom times so at least something would be blooming at any given time.

The seeds in the new garden include:

Red Corn Poppy - spring bloomer
Black-Eyed Susan - blooms May-Nov
Wine Cup - Feb-June
Farewell-to-Spring - Spring bloomer (Hates hot weather)
Parry's Penstemon - Spring bloomer
California Poppy - Spring-Fall
Eryngo - Aug-Nov
Greenthread - Feb-Nov (food source for Painted Bunting so I HAD to throw this one in)
Yellow Prairie Flax - Feb-Sept
Blue Flax - May-Sept

Oh - I also ordered some Texas bluebell seeds, but they are on backorder. If I ever get those, I will toss those in as well.

Now I just have to wait and see if any of my seeds come up. I threw a ton of them in there so SOMETHING ought to come up! I do hope this flower bed turns out as nice as it looks in my imagination!

9 comments:

Tina Poe said...

I bet it will be beautiful, I really like the curvy tear drop shape you created.

Karla at The Garden Guide said...

Its going to be great! Can't wait to see what its going to look like when all those seeds come up. You are going to have a cloud of beautiful butterflies!

HappyGardener said...

Just searching the web on the topic of Hummingbirds and saw your post. Love your pictures. I was just on a tour of the Fordhook Farms owned by George Ball president of Burpee Seeds and Heronswood. Anyway, during my tour around his gardens I saw an area he had setup for Hummingbirds (He calls it Hummingbird Alley if you want to see some pics from there), just amazing, so now I am doing some research on setting up a garden of my own.

I was not doing any research on Butterfly gardens but he also has a post on that too.. Butterfly Hill

If you ever have a chance and are in that area, you have to visit that place - I think they have a few open houses each year.

Annie in Austin said...

Hi Bonnie,

I sure hope your green thread seed takes and attracts Painted Buntings so you can share photos with us.

Annie

Lee17 said...

tina,

Thanks! It will eventually blend all the way back to the house. I will be putting a path in where that strip of grass is.

Lee17 said...

Karla,

I hope so! I am crossing my fingers for lots of butterflies ;)

Lee17 said...

happy gardener,

Thanks for the links! I will be sure to check them out ;)

Lee17 said...

happy gardener,

Thanks for the links! I will be sure to check them out ;)

Lee17 said...

annie,

Me too! I would like to get a photo of a painted bunting the next time one visits my garden!