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Butterfly Garden

monarda bad idea for the butterfly garden?

15 years ago

HI,

I planted monarda didyma in my bf garden last year and it was a big hit with hummingbirds, bees, yellow jackets, wasps, and me. but now i'm thinking that providing a nectar source for wasps in the bf garden isnt such a good idea, and that maybe I should move them away or get rid of them altogether. they were beautiful and bloomed most of the summer, so I'd hate to do that unnecessarily. if they arent any more of a nectar source for wasps than are any of the other nectar plants i have, e.g., joe pye weed, cosmos, zinnias, then no point in moving them. thoughts, anyone? thanks.

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Comments (6)

MissSherry
15 years ago
In my garden, wasps are attracted to the same nectar plants that hummers and butterflies are attracted to, so if I were you, I'd leave it. The swallowtails really loved my M. fistulosa, but, unfortunately, it didn't come back. I've got some hot pink monarda (it was only identified as monarda when I bought it) that does come back, though.
Thanks for thinking about caterpillars - wasps are indeed a big predator on caterpillars!
Sherry
roper2008
15 years ago
I have all kinds of different wasps in my garden. There
is one that is kinda orange. It eats monarch and swallowtail caterpillars. My sister told me to set a
wasp trap, but I don't want to do it. I have so much
parsley, fennel and milkweed, that the wasps can't eat
all of them. Alot of them still make it to adult stage.
I am going to sow more milkweed seeds.
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I think I had this for a couple of years, and it did attract lots of hummers and butterflies and moths. I just planted a new Salvia 'Black and Blue' this year because the butterfly people suggested it for both hummers and butterflies. I also have the Salvia Texas Sage with pink/white blooms, and the Sulphurs just love it. The butterflies that like the fruit plates are Question Marks, Commas, Red Admirals, Mourning Cloaks, Hackberry and Tawny Emperors because they are not strict nectaring butterflies like the Monarchs, Swallowtails, Sulphurs, etc. We are inundated with lots of butterflies this year. I have raised close to 60 Question Marks, a couple of Hackberry Emperors, Silvery Checkerspots and Bordered Patches, Black Swallowtails, and Pipevine Swallowtails. I raised about 5 Nessus sphinx and one Eumorpha Achemon sphinx that feed on my Virginia Creeper (a very valuable wildlife plant for birds and moths). Last year, my friend, Linda, said she had the migrating Monarchs all over her verbesina enceliodes (Golden Crownbeard), so she gave me a seedling. I've also got 3 different hardy lantanas, pentas lanceolata (a sphinx moth host plant), milkweed (tons of it for the Monarch larvae), Joe Pye Weed (in full bloom right now), two passion vines (Blue Crown and incarnata 'Incense', and the mama Gulf Frit just laid about 50 eggs on them), Wild Senna, Partridge Pea, Sunflowers, verbena bonariensis, annual red verbena, fennel (green and bronze), Zizia aurea (for the Black Swallowtails, too), my Rue that I've grown for several years, and several pipevine species, Aristolochia macrophylla (big leaf), A. tomentosa, A. clematitis, and A. serpentaria, veronica, lavendar 'Provence', catmint, Marigolds, lots of zinnias, Salvia pink flowering perennial, Mexican Flame Vine (a real nectar favorite), yellow coneflower, pale coneflower, cosmos (the Orange is blooming its head off right now), phlomis tuberosa, cleome, agastache foeniculum, and tons of other stuff, all crammed into my tiny front yard. I saw one hummingbird early in the season, but haven't seen any since. I usually see them when they migrate south later in summer-early fall. Sometimes the butterflies that like rotting fruit, dung, and tree sap, will use the hummer feeders, too. Have you seen that happen? Susan
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nebu
15 years ago
Cool topic.

I once noticed wasps hand picking small Cassius Blue Cat's off of my Plumbago, then fly with them in their arms and take them back to a little mud nest with a hole entrance and watch the wasp load the Cat head first in the hole and fly off to repeat the process all day.

-Nick
susanlynne48
15 years ago
Watcur monarda in early evening and night, too. Mine has also attracted some night-flying moths as well.

Susan
drzoidberg
Original Author
15 years ago
Ok, thank you for the replies. Wasps injecting cats with their larvae is hardly the sort of behavior I want to encourage, but I guess that's nature's way. The monarda stays.

Which are the bigger threat, though, wasps or tachnid flies? Last year I placed a not-completely sealed wire cage (open on the bottom) over some milkweed in my garden. Of the about a dozen monarch chrysalids that formed in the cage, none ever eclosed. I assume due to flies.
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
15 years ago
drsoidberg, the kinds of wasps that (I believe) the others are talking about are not parasitoids, but predators. For example, paper wasps and mud daubers will snatch a caterpillar, sting to paralyze it, then carry it off to the nest where it's sealed inside with an egg from the wasp. Wasp larvae will then be able to feed on live (though sedated) caterpiller until ready to emerge as an adult. Yellow jackets, too, are predators and will feed directly on caterpillars and other insects.

The much smaller parasitic wasps are the ones that lay their eggs on or under the skin of feeding caterpillars. Their larvae feed on the living caterpillar from the inside out, emerging only when ready to fly away as adults.

In my gardens, the hummingbirds really enjoy the monarda, and I'd not remove it primarily because of that. But, a diversity of insects is healthy, too.

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