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Once the weather is warm enough that you are no longer in danger of frost and the seedlings are at least 2-4" high, you are ready to begin the process of creating your flower bed and transplanting your flowers (checkout the video to see progress on my butterfly garden plan).
The Coreopsis (pictured) has many buds and is beginning to flower! I can't wait to get them planted in the butterfly garden. They will make a great border.
Plant Hardening
After my setback on Week 6, I replanted more seeds and progress has been very good. The indoor plant growing equipment including the six T8 Fluorescent light bulbs are working very well. I have them setup on a timer (my Christmas light timer) where they provide my plants with 16 hours of light per day. I have 4 of the Jiffy Professional Greenhouse flats under the lights right now (see picture). Please remember to remove the plastic dome after the seeds have germinated (I only use the bottom portion of the greenhouse). Also, I have found that spacing the peat pellets every other cell works well so the roots do not get intertwined (you may need to buy yourself a couple more Jiffy Professional Greenhouse flats).
The Hollyhock (pictured - top) is growing very quickly and the leaves are getting very large. Additionally, the Coreopsis (pictured - middle) is beginning to get little flower buds! I am hopeful that I will be able to show you some flowering Coreopsis next week. The bottom picture provides you with a better view of my T8 Fluorescent light bulb setup with my 4 Jiffy Professional Greenhouse flats.
Unfortunately, I had a setback two weeks ago with a death in the family. I travelled back to my home town in Wisconsin. During my stay with family in Wisconsin I was unable to care for the seedlings for 7 days. As a result, I did lose quite a few plants.
The surviving plants were the Coreopsis, Anise Hyssop (pictured), Hollyhock, and Butterfly Bush. These plants are doing very well under the fluorescent lights. The plants are now getting to be about 4 inches tall. I will be repotting them into larger containers (peat pots) this weekend where they will continue to receive 16 hours of fluorescent lights until it is time to plant them in the butterfly garden outside.
Posted by: dan.thomas.dt in butterfly food on
Mar 19, 2009
BIRDS-N-GARDEN.com in Austin, TX has a nice article called
Butterfly Gardening with emphasis on the considerations for your backyard butterfly habitat and how to solve some common problems (e.g., too much wind, shady spots, unproductive grass lawn, winter butterflies, thirsty butterflies). Diagrams are provided of some simple butterfly garden plans in the shape of an island and a listing of some plants (e.g, Salvia, Butterfly Bush, Rudbeckia, Cosmos, Pentas, Verbana, Coreopsis, Black-foot Daisy). Checkout the article for more details!
Checkout the
Attracting Butterflies to Your Garden by Marie Iannotti's at About.com for some very good information on attracting butterflies. She provides information about the butterfly lifecycle as well as how to select plants to attract both butterflies and caterpillars. She also covers topics like
climate, shelter, puddles, and hiberation. In particular, I like the table containing a listing of
Cultivated Plants and Shrubs for Butterfly Gardens as a good resource. The
table contains links to more information about the various plants and shrubs. Enjoy!
I continue to see good results after Week 3 of using my indoor plant growing equipment like the Jiffy Professional Greenhouse. The plants under the fluorescent lights are doing very well and continue to grow. As I had planted multiple seeds in each peat pellet, I used a razor blade yesterday to cut off the plants that were not as strong. Now there is only one plant in each peat pellet. One problem that I encountered was some mold on the Phlox maculate (Wild Sweet William) - a sign of being to moist in the greenhouse. I am going to replant the Phlox seeds later today.
I continue to see good results after Week 2 of using my indoor plant growing equipment like the Jiffy Professional Greenhouse. At the beginning of Week 2 I planted a number of new seeds for my next batch of plants (Hairy Rose Mallow - pictured to the right, Purple Wave Petunia, Wild Sweet William Phlox, and Dwarf Plains Coreopsis).
Seeds Germinating After Week 1
Vera Krischik from the University of Minnesota Extension created a sample butterfly border garden in her Butterfly Gardening article.
The article contains a suggested list of nectar plants containing shrubs, cultivated flowers, and wildflowers. Additionally, she provides a very detailed table of butterfly and moth garden plants based on a list of plants rated excellent by Carrol L. Henderson of Landscape for Wildlife, available through Minnesota's bookstore at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (612-297-3000 or 1-800-652-9747; ask for Minnesota's Bookstore).
Week 1 results were very positive using my indoor plant growing equipment like the Jiffy Professional Greenhouse for my initial three variety of seeds (Anise Hyssop, Butterfly Weed, Butterfly Bush) being grown indoors in preparation for My Butterfly Garden Plan.
Seeds Germinating After 7 Days
