A butterfly garden will benefit area landscape
BY JOE DANIEL

A butterfly garden will benefit any East Texas landscape. It doesn't matter your label, the hectic pace of all will slow to a refreshing stroll when butterflies come near. Here are some hints for attracting butterflies to your yard.

• Choose a site in the landscape where you travel daily or view for several minutes each day. Sites should receive at least a half day of sunlight.

If you come up with two or three small sites, that should be considered better than one larger one.

• Place a garden hose in various shapes in the selected site until a bed shape is found that is pleasing to the eye.

Curvilinear beds are often found to be a pleasing relief from the straight lines of structures. When a bed shape and size seems pleasing, see if you can't repeat it at one of the other sites.

• Choose a means of defining where the bed starts and stops. Stone, liriope and steel edging are commonly used.

• Determine the area of the bed. A shapely bed may call for higher math.

• Select butterfly attracting plants. An excellent starting place would be with the plants known as butterfly bush and depending on space available; there may be no need to look at others. This native of China is unequalled at drawing butterflies.

Most years in the Cherokee County area butterfly bush will be deciduous. The natural plant form is multi-stemmed, upright with arching branches. In summer and fall there will be long cone shaped panicles of flowers.

Purple bloom varieties were the first on the market. These days you can find light blue, dark blue, purple, pink, red, white and mixes. One called Honeycomb has creamy yellow flowers with deep orange centers.

Another named kaleidoscope is a gorgeous lavender and butterscotch yellow. It doesn't matter the flower color they all will be covered with butterflies for months. Even though some varieties are listed as relatively compact, I would recommend at least a 5 foot by 5 foot spacing.

With the addition of two butterfly bushes, you can justifiably tell any garden club member that you added a butterfly garden. These plants will live for years with our normal annual rain fall once established. A second "butterfly magnet" is lantana.

Many think of this plant as very common but it is indeed special. It thrives in the hottest weather.

The variety New Gold has been named a Texas Superstar. It has done great from Texarkana to Laredo. A three by three planting spacing is a good starting point if variety data is not available. Better nurseries will have planting and care data on their labels. Many lantana varieties are poisonous to livestock. Keep this in mind for you and neighbors if applicable.

It has been said that some gardeners (mostly males) have "NCAA" color and design skills (NCAA - No Class At All). Even gardeners who can hardly steer a color wheel get excited about the splash yellow lantana and purple butterfly bush will make.

• Prepare a bed that will be long lasting and low maintenance. Till a couple inches of organic matter into the soil before planting and add four to six inches of mulch after planting. If all this sounds like more time and work than you can give this week, then check out a local nursery.

Large planters with lantana, butterfly bush or other butterfly attracting plants are often available or could be custom made for your landscape.

Joe Daniel is Cherokee County Extension Service Horticulturist.