By Master Gardener Volunteer Lesley Arrandale
mail@floridanewsline.com
It’s the second week in April and we’ve had a good amount of rain. No torrential downpours, just the steady soaking type and some refreshing brief showers. While venturing into the backyard one day, I glanced along the back of my house, where I’ve laid some long branches to edge an informal bed. Sitting on one of them was a lovely red and black butterfly. I’ve seen the species before, but not often; it was a red admiral.
So why did it appear in my yard? Like most butterflies, it needs specific plants on which to lay eggs, so I did some research (https://tinyurl.com/yxr5u3tu). Red admirals can be found in many areas of the world, and they are one of the butterflies I saw as a child in the UK. There they lay their eggs on stinging nettles (Urtica sp.), and on this continent there are similar plants for them to utilize. In my yard, though, Florida pellitory (Parietaria floridana) is its host plant — a weedy thing that I’d been pulling out without a second thought, and certainly without bothering to learn what it was first. Well, I’ve decided to keep some of it and hope for more red admirals. I’ll be more cautious in future about what I edit from my yard, and this article could help: https://tinyurl.com/mr2mmd3j. The website is full of information for wildflower enthusiasts and is worth investigation.
As more insects emerge for the summer, I know there’s more to discover. Before our Shumard oak leafed out I noticed it had two egg-shaped “things” dangling from its outer twigs. I’ve recently learnt that they were cocoons of the polyphemus moth, one of our largest and most beautiful silk moths (https://tinyurl.com/mazr9zv2). It might sound strange, but I am hoping our tree will host a small army of polyphemus caterpillars — it won’t suffer — as they could be food for hungry baby birds.
I recently planted out some hyacinth beans (Lablab purpureus) at the base of a bamboo “teepee” frame. As well as being decorative plants, the leaves can be eaten like spinach. The beans are edible, with a good amount of protein, but must be boiled before eating as they contain a toxin. Another experiment. For more information, check out https://tinyurl.com/4hr7wyc7.
A reminder — the Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/vh021) is a great source of information on choosing and growing our more usual summer crops.
If you are having a difficult tomato season, information here could help identify possible diseases: https://tinyurl.com/45ypukb3. Although a popular crop, tomatoes are not always easy to grow, and I’ve had little joy recently. Next year I’ll try one or two varieties bred by the University of Florida. There are three available from Proven Winners, in their “Tempting Tomatoes” series. They get great reviews based on flavor and disease resistance.
Some of the plants flowering in my garden include wild petunias (Ruellia caroliniensis), Simpson’s stoppers (Myrcianthes fragrans), lance leaf coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata), blanket flower (Gaillardia sp.), sunflowers (Helianthus sp.), wild red salvia (Salvia coccinea), starry rosinweed (Silphium asteriscus), and — a mixed blessing — beggar’s ticks (Bidens alba), one of the very best native plants for a huge variety of pollinators. It’s vital to keep it in check. If you remove its seedheads before the seeds mature, then it’s a great plant. But if those seeds spread, it will live up to the definition of a weed — there will be plants aplenty in the wrong places.
The native passion vine or maypop (Passiflora incarnata) has begun to flower, and the gulf fritillary butterflies that have been flitting around for weeks, have clearly been laying eggs. Their caterpillars are making a meal of the tender new leaves and are growing daily. This native vine can spread too, but it’s simple to pull up when spotted in the wrong place.
