Butterfly Garden - Pea Family Nitrogen-fixers

Land plants are believed to have co-evolved around 400 million years ago with a type of fungus that penetrates their roots and helps the plants to absorb phosphates and other nutrients in exchange for photosynthesis-derived sugar. However, more recently some plants have evolved a different symbiotic relationship which allows them easier access to nitrogen, an essential component of protein and other molecules necessary for plants to survive - this time with bacteria.

Although the air is 78% nitrogen, it is not in a form that plants can absorb. It must be fixed by special types of bacteria in the soil, many of which are free-living providers for plants. Others have evolved to provide an extra jolt to plants like legumes (pea/bean family plants) in exchange for carbon. In many of these you can dig up the roots and actually see the spherical "nodules" these bacteria call home. And then plant them again and hope they survive.

Three of the commonly planted prairie legumes are shown below. They are popular for use in prairie restoration because they increase nitrogen in the surrounding soil for other plants. And two of them are popular with grazing animals because of their high protein content.

From Butterfly Garden

Purple Prairie Clover (Dalea purpurea) is shown above and grows to about 1-3' tall. Native full sun prairie plants are hard to find this short and make nice border plants. The small purple flowers bloom from the bottom up along a 1-2" cylindrical spike. Be careful of rabbits - cages might help to get it established.

From Butterfly Garden

The White Wild Indigo (Baptisia leucantha) can grow very quickly in the Spring and can be 3-6 ft. tall by the time it blooms. The flower spikes can be up to 2 ft. long and although high in protein this one is actually poisonous to mammalian herbivores.

From Butterfly Garden

The Lead Plant (Amorpha canescens) is one of my favorites aesthetically. It blooms in early to mid-summer and grows from 1-3 ft. tall. It's very fine hairs on them stems and tiny compound leaflets make it look like it's dusted with white lead, hence the name. Rabbits love this one too but we haven't really had a problem in our garden.

Butterfly Garden - We're Back!

By: Samra Matin & Jiten Patel (class of 2011)

Due to overwhelming response from our first blog post, the witty and insightful piece about Fox Glove Beardtongue, we’re back to write another one. Yes, readers, the ME Butterfly Garden blog is quickly making its way up the most trafficked website list. Soon, it will reach the status of MySpace circa 2005. It won’t, most likely. But can FaceBook provide you with gentle commentary and unbiased reporting of butterfly gardens? I didn’t think so.

The three plants in the spotlight today are the Golden Alexander, Meadow Anemone, and Nodding Onion. Though Meadow Anemone and Golden Alexander are currently in bloom, Nodding onion is not.

The Golden Alexander can grow up to 2.5 feet and has hairless, shiny stems. The blooming period occurs from late spring to early summer, and lasts about 1 month. It grows best in full to partial sun, although light shade under trees is tolerated. The soil should be moist and loamy, and can contain some rocky material.

This plant is easy to grow and maintain. The golden-yellow flowers attract short-tongued bees, wasps, flies, and beetles. It’s a good, low-maintenance plant that can add color to your garden. At the Maine East butterfly garden, we have plenty of this plant. Ms. Childress wouldn’t mind if readers contacted her in order to dig some out and take home to plant.

The second plant, Meadow Anemone, is a short plant, growing only 12-18 inches. It has small white flowers that bloom in masses. It will grow well both sun and woodland shade but it grows and blooms faster in the sun. It can be considered invasive, as it takes over the ground rapidly. The plant is great as a ground cover and can be used to fill in bare spots between plants. We’d love it if readers wanted to dig up some of this plant and take it home, as well. All you need is a big space with partial sun. Planting it under a tree where you need lots of ground cover would be ideal.

In addition to being completely aggressive, the meadow anemone has quite a history. It was used medically by North American Indigenous peoples as an astringent and as a styptic for wounds, sores, nosebleeds, and as an eyewash. Also the root was respected by Plains tribes and used for many ailments.

And lastly, the Nodding Onion, is native to New York and grows up to 1.5 feet. The flowers are white, pink, and purple. The nodding onion is a late summer bloomer and blooms from July to August. The stem bends so the flower nods towards the ground-giving the flower its name. The nodding protects the nectar from being leached away in the rain. The plant also likes full to partial sun, and moist conditions. It doesn’t do well in hot, dry summer.

The nodding onion was used widely by Native Americans for medicinal purposes. Its juice was given to children to treat sore throats and hives. It was also applied externally for infections, sores, and swellings. The leaves of the plant, which have a strong onion flavor, can be put in salads. Additionally, the juice, applied to exposed skin, repels mosquitoes and other biting insects.

Butterfly Garden - Penstemon Digitalis (Not a pokemon)

By: Samra Matin & Jiten Patel (class of 2011)

No, this post isn’t about the Native American chief named Fox glove Beard Tongue. We actually don’t know if there ever was a chief named Foxglove Beard Tongue. It sounds plausible, but confirming it would require more research, and we’re second semester seniors. Fun fact: It took us a whole class period to come up with that witty intro.

Instead, we’re here to talk about penstemon digitalis, otherwise known as the Foxglove Beard Tongue, a gentle flower naturally occurring in meadows and prairies. It’s a very low maintenance plant that grows well during the spring months and needs a plentiful amount of sun exposure. The Foxglove plant is also self-seeding so under the right conditions, it’ll germinate in the fall and sprout back every spring. Foxglove Beard Tongue has spikes of white tubular flowers that bloom through May to July on 2 to 4 feet stems. The flowers have purple stripes to attract hummingbirds and butterflies, who visit the flowers for nectar.

The bad news? All parts of the plant are poisonous if ingested. Maybe that’s why Plants for a Future, a site that reports on medicinal uses of specific plants, has no entry for penstemon digitalis. However, the plant is pretty easy to work with and the white flowers are quite picturesque. It’s easy to grow in average, dry to medium –wet, well drained soil and is considered to be a low maintenance plant that is drought tolerant. There aren’t many serious insect or disease problems, but the foxglove beard tongue doesn’t do well in heavy clay or wet, poorly drained soil.

Butterfly Garden - An Early Bloomer, Prairie Smoke

One of the few short, evergreen prairie plants that exist, Geum triflorum, also known as Old Man's Whiskers, Prairie Smoke, or Three-flowered Avens, presents us with a curious cluster of pink, bell-shaped flowers bobbing in the breeze during late April or early May. Standing only 6-18" tall, these plants serve as nice border plants. But their short stature and unaggressive nature means you need to keep weeds away from seedlings and prevent the big prairie monsters from towering over and excessively shading them. As early bloomers they serve as a much-needed food source for small insects emerging from hibernation.

Look at that color! I think it's my Spring favorite... haven't decided yet.

What will dumbfind you (!) even more than their flowers are their fruits. Once the pollinators have wedged their big bee-bodies into the blooms, a slow fertilization process allows the flowers to last for several more weeks. Eventually each bloom will lift its head and turn into a tufted fruit that looks like a plume of smoke. Each plume is actually the "style" of the flower (the tube between the sticky stigma and the ovary). These stylin' plumes elongate in order to create pinkish, whisker-like, functional art. Acting as wind-dispersal aids for the seeds, by the end of June, away they fly...

If you're interested in planting these, put them in dry, well-drained soil with maximum sunlight.

Buttterfly Garden - The flower that never opens...

If you're looking for a short (1-2ft.) pretty purple fall bloomer that is able to thrive in moist soil and full or partial sun, try the Bottle Gentian.  The unique flower petals are fused creating a bottle-shaped tube.  The only pollinators that are able to muscle their way into the strange flower bottles are bumble bees.  It's pretty fun to watch.  I'm assuming that the advantage to the Gentian may be that this obstacle course ensures a nice heavy dusting of pollen.(?)

Butterfly Garden - The New Guy...

Don't believe the lie about the filing cabinets... And I prefer to call it extreme curiosity, but thanks for the shout-out, Kett, if that's what that was. ;)  Anyway, I've got a crazy caterpillar story:  I was out in our new Maine East vegetable garden with Mr. PappaG and Mr.Skelton Friday looking for some healthy treats to bring home for the weekend.  Skelton informed us that the Morning Glories were choking the broccoli, so when I pulled the heap of offenders out this nice, plump guy/gal (see pic below) was revealed, munching on fennel.  Nice colors, huh?  Black Swallowtail Butterfly - they're pretty abundant in North America.  They eat plants in the carrot family (dill, fennel parsley, Queen Anne's Lace, etc.)

Determined to protect him from harm and not to miss the prepupal ritual and transformation, I placed him in the tank with the Monarch chrysalis and brought him home for the weekend.  On the ride home I got a little anxious as I saw him approach the Monarch cocoon.  The tank can't be opened now due to the precarious position of the Monarch.  After yelling and stressing (even some tapping on the tank at stoplights) awaiting the impending sabotage or who knows what, then brainstorming about who to pull over and call for advice, I realized it was really just caterpillar curiosity.  (?)  Calm down...  He moved on.

I got him home and watched as he spun a silken attachment pad on the side of the tank then kept reinforcing a "girdle" strand that would hold his upper body as he leaned back.

So exciting to watch, but then I MISSED the best part!  Sitting on the couch only six feet away but immersed online, I missed the whole transformation.  To the left you see the skin he shed and the fresh chrysalis still suspended by the girdle.  What a drag - below is what I suppose it must have looked like (mute the video - the fake sloppy shedding sounds are gross):



This species doesn't migrate like the Monarch.  They spend all Winter in their cocoon, believe it or don't.  The last generation of the year emerges in August or September, so this one could become a butterfly in a week or stay put for the next seven months.  I guess we'll wait and see!  You can actually put them in the refrigerator with a damp cloth until April.  Wish I would've known and I'd have put him in a container 1/50th the size.   Ah, well - we'll find a nice safe spot for him outside. 

And the Monarch's light green chrysalis with shiny gold rim is now thinning enough to see the black wings inside.  I'm guessing we'll be setting him free tomorrow afternoon.  Would that there were an inexpensive remote-sensing mini-camera to strap to his back...  !

~Ms. Childress

Butterfly Garden - Calm Down and Read This

It’s understandable that when the word “butterfly” is heard, one gets excited. What’s not to love about any of the members of order Lepidoptera (I seriously knew that)? Go ahead and add the word “garden” on top of “butterfly” and you’ve got a recipe for some real excitement.

*True story, when I first met Ms. Childress, I mentioned butterfly gardens to her and she started running around the office, screaming and knocking over filing cabinets.

I’ve met people who were passionate before, but until I met her and found out about her passion for butterflies and gardens (see anecdote above*), I had no idea what passion was. Over the summer, she was quite often found amidst her plants (or her “babies”). Once I even saw her arguing with one. She’sfirm, but fair.

Some of her more precious babies include the Rattlesnake Master (see below), a member of the carrot family (!) that is common in most Illinois counties, sans those in Southwest Illinois. Fun fact: Pioneers originally thought that the root could be used as an effect antidote to the bite of a rattlesnake, (hence,the name) but they were way off. Perhaps that’s why so many pioneers died; that, and dysentery.

We also actually have an endangered species in our garden, the Small Sundrops, which is normally foundout on the East coast and only blooms during the day, so that’s alright. This one was a recent adoption from Oakton Ken, still a tiny baby and hasn't bloomed yet, so look it up yourself if you want to see it in all it's glory.

On top of that, we’ve got the Eastern Prickly Pear cactus. That’s right, a cactus in the Midwest. Talk about it. We’ll let that sink in.

Once you check your heart rate, go ahead and read on at your own risk.

You may have just missed the yellow blooming of one of the tallest plants in our haven(right by the Southwest corner of the building), and that would be the Compass Plant, an essential component to any prairie that’s worth admiring. Pioneers believed that it’s leaves always faced in the North/South direction, and while that may be true more often than not, it’s not always reliable. We certainly wouldn’t call those pioneers a “credible source” with their “fringe” and “manifest destiny” and “cholera” and “having to caulk the wagon and float across the river.”

**Authors note: I don’t remember a lot from “history,” but I did play a lot of Oregon Trail as a child.

***Authors note again: I destroyed that game.









~ Mr. Kett