The Butterfly Garden

It is January. There is no way this garden should look as green as this. Hell must have frozen over, because my garden hasn't.

It is messing up my plan for this garden, frankly. In the summer, masses of purple and gold lantana would attract butterflies. In the winter, all of this would die back allowing the camellias and easter lillies to bloom. Well, the lantana is still kicking and my camelias aren't.

In front of the bird bath is a purple butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii 'Nanho Purple') which looks a 100 times better right now than it did in June. Go figure. On either side are two Salvias ('Indigo Spires') that had bright blue flowers in June - not so much now. They are getting tall and lanky, but I'm scared to prune them. I suspect I should wait until the end of February to cut down on frost risk. Behind the butterfly bush is a variagated lantana with pale yellow flowers that I think might be called 'Lemon Drop'. It didn't do well over the summer, but it has a lot of small leaves right now and might be making a come back. The tree is a hot pink crepe myrtle flanked by purple mexican petunias (Ruellia). Purple passion flower vine still has tendrills over the arbor and camellias are in the beds next to fence. Oh yeah, yesterday I planted pink tiger lillies to go with the easter lilles from last year.

Everything in here is meant to be butterfly and toddler friendly. If you want butterflies, just add a passion vine and butterfly bush. The later was in the ground a total of ten minutes before the first butterfly landed on it. The passion vine attracts the catapillers of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly who ate it to the ground over the summer. The cats cacooned and flew away and the vine grew back with a vengance. The garden is also meant to stand up to the 3 year old. All of the flowers are small and plentiful, so she can pick as many bouquets for Daddy as she wants. Most of the plants can take little walking on, too.