Posts Tagged ‘butterflies’

Easy Propagating Perennials: Sedum Plants

By Sarah Battersby on June 26th, 2017 | Comments
Large swaths of flowering plants best for design and for use by pollinators.

Large swaths of flowering plants best for design and for use by pollinators.

Want to increase your stock of perennial plants? It’s worth your while to make new plants, to share or to make a bigger splash in the garden. Plus, it’s easy and fun.

Propagation varies in terms of easiness, but sedums, like ‘Autumn Joy’ or its other variants are a good place to start as they are one of the easiest. Sedums are one of my favourite perennials for many reasons. Pollinators go crazy for their flower nectar, and as they are succulent, they are super low maintenance. They are also one of the hardiest perennials, and one of the few that will over-winter in a container.

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Plant an Oak Tree for Biodiversity

By Sarah Battersby on July 7th, 2015 | Comments

If you want to plant a native tree and are wondering which species would benefit wildlife the best, plant an oak. According to wildlife expert Doug Tallamy, the author of “Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife With Native Plants, an oak tree offers the best overall benefit to a huge number of wildlife species. Doug is an entymologist who seeks to tell the world about the importance of biodiversity and preserving habitats for all “the little creatures that help us”. He points out that if you kill the insects, you are killing the birds who need to eat those insects.

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The Tipping Point and Natural Wildlife Gardens

By Sarah Battersby on June 10th, 2015 | Comments
monarch butterfly

Monarch butterfly on verbena bonariensis flower.

Is the desire for natural gardens—along with a concern for pollinators like bees and butterflies—at a tipping point? I’m beginning to think so. Now that so much of our world is technologically driven, urban, half concrete-based and half virtual, there’s an instinctual movement back towards the natural world. The urge is primal—a longing for the natural—for, as Joni Mitchell once wrote, “getting back to the garden”.

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Bee & Butterfly Garden

By Sarah Battersby on July 31st, 2014 | Comments
Where once was just a patch of grass, now flowers bloom on the street.

Where once was just a patch of grass, now flowers bloom on the street.

The most satisfying garden I’m working on this summer is in a public space. It’s a “guerilla garden” next to a public school. (Maybe it’s really not a “guerilla garden” anymore, as the school—including the administration—absolutely love that it’s there.) Neighbours on our street started gardening on a strip of land next to the school parking lot about four years ago. We dug up the grass, planting discards from other gardens, whatever was going spare: hostas, orange daylilies, rudbeckia, shasta daisies and coreopsis.

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