Talking about AGE and NAPS, have you ever?
4 years ago
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Ever butterfly napped?
Comments (14)Michelle, I have to stop and think when I started because I'm getting my years mixed up sometimes when I talk. Let's see...late in the summer of 2005 I planted three swamp milkweed plants that I bought at a local nursery but it was so late in the year that I guess the Monarchs were already done laying for the year. I didn't have any other host plants for any kind of butterflies planted at that time. Then in 2006 I bought a packet of butterfly weed seeds at Lowe's and started them inside and them bloomed the first year and I got Monarch cats on those and my 3 swamp milkweed plants. I got seeds off of my swamp milkweed plants that year, so I started some in pots and left them sit outside, so I guess I winter sowed without really thinking about it except I didn't have them covered with plastic. They did great and I had enough plants come up last spring to make a 100-plant swamp milkweed patch. I also put some in 3-gallon pots last year and used them in my butterfly cage to feed Monarch cats. Right now I have 56 of those pots of swamp milkweed sitting outside in the pots, and I last fall before we got a frost I dragged in 20 tropical milkweed plants in the house that I had planted in one-gallon containers. I will also plant a tropical milkweed flower bed like I did last year with almost 30 plants. A lot of my butterfly weed plants didn't come back last year and I had to plant about 18 out of the 24 that I have in the garden. I'm not going to replace them this year if any die because I haven't started any and probably won't. I just have too many other plants to worry about. lol So I say that 2006 was my first year with my butterfly garden because I don't count a few plants that I had out the year before. The swamp milkweed and butterfly weed were the only host plants that I offered in 2006. Then last year CalSherry sent me some tropical milkweed seeds. I bet I found about as many eggs on my 28 TM plants as I did my 100 swamp milkweed plants and not many at all on my butterfly weed. Since I started coming here on the forum in 2006, I've learned lots about host plants for other types of butterflies and am trying to provide for lots of other butterflies. I'll list them here so others might consider planting them for the butterflies, although there are other host plants that a person can plant. Between the ones I planted last year and the ones I'll be planting this year, I'll be providing the following food for the cats and I'll list the cat that each type of plant feeds: Garden Plants: Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)-Silvery Checkerspot Celosia-Common Sootywing Ironweed (Vernonia)-host plant for American Lady?? Plantainleaf pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia)-American Lady Penstemon hirsutus-Baltimore Checkerspot Turtlehead (Chelone glabra & Chelone lyonii)-Baltimore Checkerspot Dill, parsley, fennel-Black Swallowtail Rue (Ruta graveolens)-Black Swallowtail & Giant Swallowtail Gas Plant (Dictamnus albus)-Giant Swallowtail Spider flower (Cleome)-Cabbage White Verbena hastata-Common Buckeye Snapdragon-Common Buckeye Passionvine (Passiflora incarnata)-Gulf Fritillary (it's a long shot for me but hey...) Tropical Milkweed, Swamp Milkweed, & Butterfly Weed-Monarch Mallow (Malva sylvestris) & Hollyhock-Painted Lady, Common Checkered Skipper Rock Cress (Arabis arendsii 'Compinkie')-Falcate Orangetip Bushes: New Jersey Tea-Spring Azure, Summer Azure Spicebush (Lindera benzoin)-Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail Trees: Black Willow (Salix nigra)-Eastern Comma, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Mourning Cloak, Red-spotted Purple Hackberry tree-American Snout, Hackberry Emperor, Mourning Cloak, Tawny Emperor Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)-Spicebush Swallowtail Paw Paw (Asimina triloba)-Zebra Swallowtail Tulip Poplar (Liriodenron tulipifera)-Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Mourning Cloak, Red-spotted Purple, Spicebush Swallowtail, Viceroy Wild Black Cherry (Prunus serotina)-Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Red-spotted Purple Wafer Ash (Ptelea trifoliata)-Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail Plants that were already growing here before my getting into butterfly gardening: English Plantain-Baltimore Checkerspot, Common Buckeye, Painted Lady Viola sororia-Meadow Fritillary, Great Spangled Fritillary, Variegated Fritillary False Nettle (Boehmeria cylindrica)-Red Admiral Sorry for the long list, but I thought it might help others. Yes, I remember reading that the cats in one area might like a certain type of plant but not in another. That's why I'm trying to have a few bases covered by trying to plant at least two kinds of plants for each species I want to attract here, what I already have or kinds that are supposedly in the area. I sure hope that I can get some BC's here so I can report back what kind of plant(s) they like here. Like you, I don't have a lot of experience either since I haven't been planting for the butterflies/cats. I also feel like I'm probably going a bit overboard with the host plants but this is addicting! lol...See MoreHave you ever thought about giving up gardening?
Comments (10)Ummm, went about this the wrong way! Normal folks pick up gardening as a hobby, well, ummm, when they are normal! (Oh, "normal" in this sense means "able-bodied." I don't think I've ever been truly normal! LOL) Now back when I was "normal," we had ten tomato plants, and a patch of grass for our cat to eat, so he could throw up in our house. (Now, you understand, why I'm pretty sure I was never normal. LOL) We live in the city, and have concrete for our 16' X 16' backyard, so even the grass was in a container. Then I became disabled, and the garden kept getting bigger and bigger! I'm close to tears in planting season, both because I cannot get out there as often as I want/need and because I do too much when I do get out there, causing extra pain. Do I ever want to give up? Every single spring, when I'm surrounded by seedlings and young plants that cannot wait for me to feel good enough to plant them! Oh, and occasionally when a grasshopper the size of a minivan pops out of my lamb's ear while I'm watering it. (I'm scared to death of bugs. Stupid hobby to pick up with that phobia, huh? Really bad, since I also compost in a container, and since there is no real ground, only bugs digest the dead vegetation! LOL) I'm learning to keep that thought of quitting in my head (usually), because hubby, who is also disabled, keeps telling me that I should give it up! Well, eventually I'll get our garden pictures up online to prove that I've gone too far this year - but too far in a good way! It's drop-dead gorgeous out there now (now that it's too hot to stay out long. LOL) With three years of intense gardening experience now (tomato plants and grass never really counted) I have some suggestions for those who want to quit, and those who have become disabled, so think they have to quit -- DON'T YOU DARE! It will leave a hole in your soul! Imagine life without the smell of fresh dug soil, or peaking at that bud every day for a week, until it becomes a flower, or how the leaves all perk up after a summer rain, or nothing but store bought produce and fruit! It's like breaking the right leg of a race car driver, or a firefighter without a hose -- doable, but just so against the grain of who we are! Here's some practical suggestions on how to keep on gardening: 1. There is no such thing as a brown thumb! There is just knowledge and lack of knowledge. I've killed two air plants in my life! I used to walk by plants in stores and hear them cry, "Oh Lawd, we'll be good! Just don't let HER take us home!" Now, I've got three pumpkins growing and several stalks of popcorn. (Remember, I'm growing in containers, and have read that you CANNOT grow regular pumpkins in containers. Lucky for me, I read that when the pumpkin vines were 4 feet long, and I don't have the heart to kill real plants. Weeds aren't real plants usually! LOL) My secret? I've spent the last three years reading books about container gardening, plants for my section of the country, and good ole fashion common garden knowledge. Of course, I still run to this board, because part of my disability is short term memory loss, so I forget more then I remember! LOL 2.) Disability does not mean giving up gardening -- it means refiguring it out! Ended up meeting many disabled gardeners online, and there has been common threads for how to keep gardening -- get help (kids, grandkids, neighborhood kids all tend to enjoy helping for free, if you make it fun and/or rewarding for them, spouses and really good friends will help occasionally, or right along side of you, once they get hooked, too) and think "containers." Most disable folks I've met used to be abled, so they have these mongo gardens, or used to have plants all around their little properties. Now, they all use containers and squish all the containers around a small patio, on a small balcony, just by the back door, or, worse comes to worse, right by a nice sunny window indoors! (Regular fluorescent bulbs work as easily as gro-lights, but are much cheaper, if you have no sunny window.) Instead of indeterminate tomatoes, think grape or cherry determinates. (Our plum tomatoes look like regular tomatoes.) Instead of climbing roses, think minatures, or small varieties that can survive easily in a small to medium size container. Instead of huge sunflowers, think Teddy Bear sunflowers! And, most importantly, remember this is FUN, not a chore. Heck, half of the stuff I've sown was sown about 4-8 weeks after the last frost! So what? Either I'll see moonflowers sometime this year or I'll learn they really do need to be planted sooner. LOL I never did get everything planted that I wanted! Good thing! No more room! LOL 3.) The garden over whelms you, because you're constantly thinking about it?! Well, in the famous words of Bob Newhart, "then just stop it!!!" LOL Seriously, there is a way to stop being absorbed constantly with what we want done, what has to be done, and what order it needs to be done. It's the same solution busy executives do, except they usually get to just dictate to a secretary. LOL Write it down! Use lists to figure out what you want done and where. Use other lists for what has to be done NOW and in what order, AND use a diary to keep track of when you planted what, so you don't have to wonder the following month if that tomato plant is growing on time, or got a late start. And then, don't forget to cross out stuff that really doesn't have to be done at all! Deadheading roses! Son of a gun -- been busy at it for four years now! Know what happens if you don't? You get rosehips! Oh the horrors! LOL Now I deadhead the rose only when I want to make a nice fruit salad with rose petals in them. (Yup, the petals are edible, and softly sweet, like they smell and feel. I know! I've read it some where. LOL) It is hard for me to believe that any gardener has never considered giving it up at some point (usually in planting season, less likely in harvesting season. LOL) BUT we are gardeners because it is fun! And, it isn't just fun, because everything turned out so perfectly. I love showing off all three pumpkins! The first one is growing through a chainlink fence. (I've named him Quasimoto, because he is quite deformed, and yet determined to keep growing! LOL) My second one is hard to see, since it's being covered by over grown flowers now. (I know I "should" trim them back, but that's on my list of "don't have to!" LOL) My third one is only about the size of a small squash, and FINALLY growing in a container that has some space for her for a while. While they are growing, I've been crocheting a pumpkin hammock! I started it for fear Quasimoto was going to fall out of the chainlink fence, but I will have to cut him out! Now, I'm fairly certain that it will be used for the third one, so it doesn't crowd out my new purple sage! Then again, that bump under the pumpkin flower in the alleyway, might need it more, if it becomes my fourth pumpkin! If none of them need it, it will be a good place to store my stuffed animals. (What you thought this abnomral woman only gardens for fun?! LOL) Oh come on now! Tell me you don't have any silly things happening in your garden! If you don't, well, yeesh, you need more fun! LOL Next winter, why you're busy trying to figure out how to have more fun -- we'll be eating home-grown popcorn! Have to give an ear to my next door neighbor's granddaughter. She's five and doesn't think popcorn is grown. LOL...See MoreHave you ever been insulted about reading?
Comments (54)When I was in my 20's, single and working in an office, a co-worker picked up the book (Oscar Lewis' La Vida)I was currently reading, looked at the price, and asked in a loud voice "You paid $-- for THAT?) She had announced earlier that she and her husband had just purchased an expensive new car with all the bells and whistles. Differenct strokes. . . When my boys were young I would read aloud to them during dinner. Great for the diet! I would stop in the middle of a exciting passage, and leave the book on the table while I cleaned up the kitchen. It was fun to see which boy got to the book first to take up to his room and finish that chapter. I've never worried that my boys, now 38 and 40, would not be readers. They're both still single and have very active lives, and I was pleased that on one weekend day each called me from the city they happened to be visiting, one to tell me he had met an author of a book we both loved, and the other to announce he had found an old book I had been looking for. Reading aloud has so many benefits. Years ago my late brother, who was 15 years older than I enjoyed reading each other passages from Robert Paul Smith's Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing. For those that may not remember this lovely little book there are passages about how a child spends his idle time, including the wonders of the empty lot nextdoor. This book sparked conversations about how my brother and I each looked at our childhood experiences from different angles, and without a doubt, brought us much closer together. I certainly will treasure those times. I see I've strayed from the original topic of being insulted about reading, to more speaking in defense of reading. Sorry about that, but I guess defense of an action naturally comes after an insult....See MoreDo you ever just need someone to talk to?
Comments (36)A need or a want it is always nice to hold a conversation with people you enjoy talking to. My BIL comes over at least once a week and my SIL about once a month. I have my two grands every weekend and my daughter comes for dinner every Sunday then takes them home. I have to admit when they do leave I sometimes enjoy the quiet and not hearing Grammy every 5 minutes. lol In between my daughter calls every day. Last weekend we were with friends of ours and their grand and we are meeting my son and his family next Thursday at the pumpkin patch. My hubby isn't much of a talker, but now since we spend most of the week at camp we eat dinner at the kitchen table and talk. At home we would watch the news while we ate, not talking. I think I might shut off the news from now on when we are at home. I do miss the once a month lunches with my old coworkers, but even if we did start them back up I probably wouldn't be in town to attend anyway....See More- 4 years ago
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