It started
in earnest with a butterfly house that our son Bram gave me. Both he, who was a teenage non-gardener and
had no reason to know better, and I thought that the homestead itself was the
draw. And that soon after it was put
into place atop the pole with which it came, kaleidoscopes (aka swarms or
rabbles) of large fragile-winged, colorful insects would literally flock into
our yard to reside in our brand-spanking-new Lepidoptera dorm.
We forgot
the basic law of real estate, “Location! Location! Location!”
Not the
street address – rather the physical location within which the landing pad was
placed. “Surroundings! Surroundings!
Surroundings!” We needed a butterfly
garden to surround our butterfly house.
The wooden
dwelling with vertical slots is intended as a resting place for insects, which
happen to be in the area for another reason –an overnight pad within which to
crash after an all-day nectar binge garden party.
Not a
problem. There was no shortage of lists
of what to grow in your butterfly garden.
We initially went, as I recall, with the usual suspects: butterfly bush
and bee balm added to the daisies, cardinal plants, and false dragonheads that
already occupied the area. We also acquired some kind of “prairie flower”. I remember that the nurseryman imitated its
movement in a breeze by flailing his arms back and forth and twisting his body
like the inflatable “air dancers” that advertise the presence of car dealers
and other roadside retail businesses.
We planted
the garden in early spring. By autumn
the prairie flowers had been swallowed up by their fellow plants and never were
seen again. A few butterflies came by
for a look and a quick sip – roughly the same number that came before we put in
our alfresco nectar saloon. None stayed
overnight as far as we could tell. But
then again it would have been dark and the insects would have hidden themselves
within their narrow bed apertures – so who knows?
To help
with the attempt, my in-laws gave us a “Butterfly Growing Kit” with a cup of 5
caterpillars, caterpillar chow, and a cardboard container within which to grow
them. When the time came, on a warm
summer morning, we released the quintet of Monarchs into our butterfly
garden. They surveyed the offerings and
left.
Sometime
during the first couple of years the butterfly bush was pushed out by its neighbors
– and over time we have added and subtracted various other butterfly attractors
– such as loosestrife, hollyhock, Queen Anne’s Lace, sunflower – with no
appreciable increase or decline in the count of Lepidoptera.
I know I
shouldn’t take it personally. Most
butterflies have only a few weeks of life as an adult, winged creature so they
are really pretty focused on eating and mating during the short time that they
have. Even the well-traveled Monarch has
a brief and very busy life. Those born
in the summer breeding season live only 2-6 weeks. But the ones that migrate to
Mexico are born in late summer, stay alive all winter, and migrate north the
following spring – so whatever extra time they have is spent planning their
vacation (getting passports, shots, directions, etc.) None of them have the time to be your friend.
But I have
not given up just yet. On the web I came
across suggestions and recipes for “butterfly bait” to draw the little flitters
into our yard.
“Many
butterflies prefer rotting fruit, tree sap, dung, carrion, urine, and other
non-nectar sources of nutrients. [And who wouldn’t?] You can allow fruit from
your fruit trees to decay on the ground, leave your pet’s droppings where they
lie, or place a bit of raw meat or fish in a discreet part of your garden.”
Or perhaps
just blend them all together and spray a thick coat of the resulting liquor all
over the body of a purple-and-red thrashing air dancer man that is tethered to
the spot where the butterfly house once stood.
And as a
side benefit we might get a good price for our two decade-old cars.
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