Planning Herbs for a Butterfly Host Larval Garden

Thanks Deb, I'm gonna try this, I don't have any special garlic, I just grow some for my soups and a few other things, this looks good though going to give it a try!

Deb, Thanks for the recipe!!! Garlic bread is always a favorite for my family...Loida will cook up a big pot of spaghetti sauce and a smaller pot of noodles and we all go to town...LOL.

We will be trying this soon.


Thanks again,

Chuck

Your welcome!! I keep it made for the kids...it keeps in a bag on the counter, and much healthier than garbage snacks. I was thinking about using this recipe for making gifts for people. Get some colored empty bottles with cork tops, and put in the oil mixture with a long sprig of rosemary.

Yummy looking reciepe. I gonna have to try it too. I can so some serious damage to garlic bread. I love breads and wil start at one end and not stop til the whoel loaf gone.

From what I am gathering basically ther e is only 4 herbs for the butterflies. Is that right? I got a herb catalog and wanna make sure I got some of all that will work.

That's a good question! I think that there is more than just 4. Maybe only 4 for the Swallowtails.

I hear ya about the garlic bread. My little dog loves garlic too! We share. :-)

Well, Stars, There are at least 4 common herbs Black ST use as larval host.. That's only BST though, Larval hosts for the rest are diverse, obscure even! Caterpillar host plants went out of style when a lot of lush landscape design entered in. (Could have been avoided..) Fortunatly many of those plants are still available, (thanks to faithful conservationists.)
I know several people including me, have added at least a dozen or more new host plants for next year.. so we are doing all we can to keep butterfly populations higher & higher.. and keep good host plants growing..

Hi everyone! I'm new to gardening for butterflies & hummers, but I've been a gardener at DG for years. When you mentioned growing Parsley as a host plant for butterflies, are you referring to the curly or flat leaf varieties? Deb, what is "Black ST"?

I have a lot of reading to catch up on this forum! Thanks for all your help.

I grow curly for the Black Swallowtail Butterflies (Black ST). But I believe they will eat the flat leaf version, too. Mine particularly like dill as well.

Welcome Shirley to this forum! :-) Glad to hear that you are gonna try your hand at growing host plants for butterflies! Do read some of the current and old threads and join us here on the Butterfly Forum with questions, observations, and photos of your own! We love to have new folks join us! :-)

Cool Shirley, glad to have you!!, Becky explained BST =Black Swallowtail. This was my first real hosting experience about 10 years ago. Since then we have expanded, lol. It is the most wonerful hobby, and it chimes right into my regular gardening.. Just now the Butterflies have a little more say-so as to what I plant.. We are ll learning here just as well! Nice to see ya!

Debnes

Thanks so much for the warm welcome to this forum! I know I'll learn a lot and am looking forward to having more butterflies & hummers visit my garden because of the plants that I have grown for them.

I'll grow both the curly & flat varieties of Parsley (just in case), because I love the flat type of Parsley in salads. Glad you mentioned Dill also. I'll make sure to grow enough for the butterflies and for myself.

Now I know what "Black ST" stands for. I'll remember the next time I see it. Beautiful picture too!

Thanks again for all your help.

Dear Shirley,

Welcome to our forum. I know what you mean about abbreviations in this forum. The most difficult of the abbreviations to me is HD. I had no idea what this meant until I asked...it is Home Depot...LOL.

Good luck with butterfly gardening,

Thanks,

Chuck

Haha Chuck!

Dear Shirley~ We use certain terms so so much that we have come to shorten them.. We will try to be clearer.. but please ask if we aren't.
If you are growing herbs for your own use, and you have enough room, You can plant a section just for Bf's and another section away from that for yourself. When you see a Caterpillar hatch, clip off the leaf it is on and move it to the hosting section. This way your culinary herbs will keep from being eaten up, and they will stay cleaner of Cat frass.
Here is a page with stages of the BST Butterfly so you can see how they look>
http://www.theletteroflove.com/wallpaper/index.php?paged=6

To go through all the pages you can start here>
http://www.theletteroflove.com/wallpaper

Deb

Thanks for the warm welcome, Chuck. I do know what 'HD' stands for, but when it comes to butterflies & moths, I'm a newbie! I got lots to learn!!

Deb: Excellent point about growing my flat leaf Parsley in a separate part of my garden for me to enjoy in salads. By the way, it's delicious with home grown tomatoes! Sorry to get off topic. I'll be sure to grow plenty for the butterflies too. Thanks for all these great links! I've bookmarked them for future reference.

In my experience, there is no difference between curly and flat parsley or bronze or green fennel. They eat them all.

That's good to know that they eat both types of Parsley & Fennel. Thanks Karen.

Karen is right, they will eat them all. You just never know which ones they will eat in a specific year. One year they'll eat all your dill first, then go to fennel. The next year they might not touch your dill and go to the parsley. No rhyme so the reasoning is just have some of each! :)