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Butterfly Garden

To Control or Not To Control is my question.

13 years ago

I have a well established small suburban butterfly garden that is in its 4th spring. I initially planted everything in medium to large clumps of each type plant with tall things to the north or centrally and shorter things to the south. I also mixed items with varying bloom times to allow for both ongoing visual interest, and continuous nectar sources scattered around at any particular time. Well, everything has done fabulously well and filled in nicely. However, now I'm getting literally hundreds of volunteers of lots of different plants popping up far from their initial locations. If I let everything go, I'll really have a confused mish-mash of plants. If I try to return to a more organized design, it would take days or weeks to transplant everything. I know the butterflies don't care much. What are some of your opinions? Thanks in advance?

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Comments (5)

onafixedincome
13 years ago
I'd think it depends on what *you* want to be looking at--a nice tidy arrangement with tons of bflies all over it (in which case, you will simply have to suck it up and do the work, hehe) or a gorgeous jumbled mishmash with tons of bflies all over it.

(One guess which I prefer--a hint, I'm lazy and like jumbled up areas!)
bernergrrl
13 years ago
You can always make another garden with your volunteers.
Or offer them on freecycle; if people want some plants, they can help you get your garden back to an organized design. The other thing is that many perennials do need to be divided every so often.

You could take a cultivator and try not to look when you scratch out the seedlings.:)

I think the bugs like it better when things are all jumbled up, so I let some gardens go like that while with others that have more visibility, I do keep them a little more under control.

I look at the gardening as my cross-training. Gardening with a shovel burns 500 calories/hour.

Have fun and enjoy your garden--that's the most important thing IMO.
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MissSherry
13 years ago
I'm big on letting volunteers get a little size on them and then either potting them up and planting them somewhere else later, or just directly transplanting them. I hate to pull up and throw out volunteers that I know can make a good plant for butterflies.
The butterflies don't care, though, just make your garden look like you want it to look.
And have fun!
Sherry
butterflyman
13 years ago
I share my volunteers with schools which want to create butterfly gardens and also friends.
At some point though you just have too many and some have to go to the compost bin. You need to thin your plants out so they all aren't coping for the same nutrients.
docmom_gw
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks for all the responses. I probable will do just a bit of density control. Donating the volunteers is a great idea. Maybe I'll take some to the Farmers Market and give them away--assuming I'm not interfering with someone else's business. I'll need to wait until later in the season when most everything has broken ground before I decide which to dig for donations and which to simply yank to allow for continued survival of previously established plants. I'm actually looking forward to the work. There's nothing more rewarding than spreading new plants around the world.

Martha

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