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How to Attract Butterflies

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One of the most welcome sights in the garden is when a butterfly comes to visit. When a whole swarm of them comes, it’s like magic. So how can you be sure to get more of these lovely visitors? By planting a butterfly garden! A butterfly garden, or pollinator garden, is planted specifically to lure beneficial insects who pollinate your flowering plants.

Here on Long Island, we have many butterfly species that you might see in your garden. Monarch butterflies, black swallowtail, and the painted lady just to name a few. To lure adult butterflies you not only need nectar plants for them to eat, but you also need to plant native plants that are food for butterfly caterpillars.

In early spring butterflies arrive and begin to lay their eggs on native plants that will feed their young. These eggs hatch into caterpillars. Once the caterpillars eat their fill they will build a cocoon. They’ll stay inside the cocoon until they emerge sometime later as an adult butterfly. Your garden should provide for every stage of the lifecycle. Plants like butterfly bushes (which are considered an invasive plant in some states), coneflower, sage, and lantanas are great at feeding adult butterflies, while milkweed, aster, parsley, and violets are the favorite foods of caterpillars.

Most plants that attract butterflies grow in full sun, so plan ahead before planting your butterfly garden. While some birds and butterflies can get along, most birds love butterflies for a snack. When laying out your garden place bird feeders well away from your butterfly garden, as well as any birdhouses.

In addition to knowing what plants to grow, you need to provide water, shelter, and sun. A birdbath or water feature is the perfect way to ensure that your winged friends have access to water to drink. Trees and shrubs make for the best butterfly houses. They provide branches to roost on at night and a place to hide from predators. Many trees and shrubs are also excellent caterpillar food.

Finally, the sun. Butterflies are cold-blooded insects and they need the sun to warm themselves up each morning. Make sure that some sun reaches either open ground, stones, or even pavement early in the morning so that it warms up and will be attractive to butterflies.

If you do a little bit of advanced planning and make sure to offer everything butterflies need to thrive you’ll lure them into your garden year after year.

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The Best Early Spring Flowers

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We’ve just entered early spring and while it’s still pretty chilly most days a lot of us have turned our thoughts to spring gardening and the best spring flowers to plant to brighten up the yard. Flowers bloom at different times, so in this blog, we’ll cover some of the best plants for the early spring season. 

The location of your garden bed will determine the best types of plants to place there. Do you have full sun or part shade? Take note of that before going over the following list of spring-blooming plants. 

Creeping phlox is a wonderful addition to any spring garden and does well in all types of soil, so long as they are in full sun to partial shade. They produce a cascade of pretty white flowers, pink flowers, or lavender flowers depending on the plants chosen. Creeping phlox will come back year after year and will spread. They’re perfect for walls and rock gardens. 

Lenten roses, or hellebores, are tolerant of partial and full shade. They come in a wide variety of colors including purple, red, yellow, green, and blue and are one of the more popular blooming perennials. They are relatively drought tolerant once established. 

Daffodils, Hyacinths, Tulips, and Crocus are great spring bulbs to plant on the first day of spring. If you are looking for plants that have brightly colored flowers and are early to bloom they can’t be beaten. As a bonus, their uniquely shaped flowers attract bees and hummingbirds to your early spring garden. 

Have a damp area to fill? Try the primrose. It comes in a variety of colors and is a wonderful early bloomer. 

By planting these gorgeous bloomers your garden bed will be a riot of color and a welcome change from the drab winter weather.

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How to Maintain Colorful Winter Gardens

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Winter is almost here and the lush color of summer is far behind us. After a showy fall many gardens become drab, but they don’t have to. For a colorful winter landscape try the following:

Witch Hazel

Witch hazel blooms in winter, all the way to early spring. It will be covered in bright red or yellow flowers, depending on the species, bringing winter color to your backyard garden. 

Arctic Fire

Arctic fire is one of the dwarf varieties of shrub that can bring a riot of bright red branches to decorate your winter garden. They bring a truly beautiful pop of color after their leaves have fallen. If you have a winter fire plant be sure to cut back old wood in spring, as only newer branches will get the gorgeous blood-red coloration. Blood Twig Dogwood’s “Magic Flame” and “Midwinter Fire” are other options for orange and yellow stems. 

Camellias 

Camellias are a plant that blooms from late summer, through fall and winter to early spring. The color they bring when they bloom in winter should be a welcome addition to any garden. It produces flowers in shades of pink, red, white and even bicolor blooms. 

Winter Jasmine

Winter jasmine is another cold weather wonder that produces bright yellow flowers on bright green stems through the winter. 

Winter Aconite

Winter aconite is in the buttercup family and also produces yellow flowers during winter. They do not do well in full sun and would be perfect under small trees to add color to the landscape. 

Fullmoon Polyspora

Looking for a colorful tree or shrub? Fullmoon polyspora will reward you with beautiful white flowers with bright yellow centers in late winter. It has evergreen leaves that start out red and later turn a glossy green. 

Snowdrops

Snowdrops are a bulb you can plant that will result in white, bell shaped flowers that often push up through the snow to delight with their beauty. 

By doing a little research and creative planning you can ensure that your garden is colorful all year round. To have a garden plan created especially for you, contact Organically Green Horticultural Services.  

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Tips for Growing Pumpkins

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It’s almost pumpkin season, and while they’re already showing up in supermarkets, if you’re growing your own pumpkins it’s likely that they’re not quite ready yet. Whether you’re a pumpkin pro or want to research how to grow your own for next year, these tips can help you grow pumpkins for pie, Jack-O’-lanterns, or just to feed the critters in your yard. 

First Up, Planting.

Pumpkins and squash have a very long growing season, about 100 days to 120 days, to mature depending on the pumpkin variety. This means you’ll want to plant them as early as possible. If you’re growing them from seeds, sow seeds indoors during March or April and then after you plant the seeds let the plants start to grow indoors until the danger of frost has fully passed.

Where to Plant.

Large pumpkins need a lot of space as they have sprawling vines that can take up to 100 square feet of space. These pumpkin vines can be trained on a trellis; however, supporting the fruit can take a little bit of imagination. Miniature varieties will utilize less space, so choose the variety that works best for your situation. 

Pumpkins like full sun to light shade, so choose your planting location with that in mind as well. 

When planting pumpkins place the seeds or seedlings in the ground in a mound. This will help the seed create new roots and allow it to warm quickly, improving drainage and deterring pests. Use pre-fertilized soil, compost, or manure and continue to feed them throughout the growing season, as pumpkins are extremely heavy feeders. 

Not every flower will bear fruit as some flowers are male and the male flower is there to fertilize the female flower. Make sure to be careful when spraying because bees are necessary to spread the pollen and many insecticides also kill beneficial insects such as bees. 

Pumpkins are susceptible to a number of pests and diseases including squash vine borers, aphids, and powdery mildew, so be on the lookout for these and treat accordingly. 

To make sure the fruit lasts a long time, only harvest the pumpkin when it’s fully mature. To test if the pumpkin is mature, thump it with your finger—it should sound hollow and the rind should be hard. It should also resist puncture if you press your fingernail into it. The pumpkin should also be a deep bright color (depending on the variety, this can be orange, yellow, green, or even white). When harvesting be sure to cut, not break, the stem and include several inches of stem on the pumpkin. This will help the pumpkin to keep as long as possible. After you harvest the pumpkin let it cure in the sun for about a week to toughen the skin. Once that’s all done you can get cooking, or carving, to your heart’s content.

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