July 21st, 2019

A little history:  Rosalyn Carter has been the inspiration for my wanting to have a butterfly garden.  Several years ago, the theme of a Chautauqua meeting in Plains, Georgia, was saving the Monarch Butterfly.  Mrs. Carter had spearheaded an effort to increase the number of butterfly gardens in Georgia, and with the help of President Jimmy Carter, she had spread the effort nationally.  President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter shared the three days with us, speaking individually to the group, attending sessions, and sharing meals. 

For three days, we learned about the Monarch, its life cycle, its migrations, and its declining numbers.  With Mrs. Carter, we tagged Monarchs and released them to fly home to Mexico.  Dr. Chip Taylor from the University of Kansas, the home of Monarch Watch, also inspired and encouraged us to make every effort to establish butterfly gardens as Mrs. Carter had done.

The beginning:  Rick ordered milkweed plants, and they arrived as bare stalks!  He planted them in July, 2018, and after about two weeks, we saw little leaves appearing!  They grew to about two feet tall before winter arrived, when, of course, they died.  In the spring of 2019, I watched anxiously for some sign that they lived.  Finally, I saw a tiny bit of green at the bottom of an old stalk!  Hope!  Indeed, they grew like weeds, which they are! 

Because the milkweed  grew so well, and because I could enlist the help of a landscaping crew, we began to build the garden in May, 2019, from a field of solid grass and weeds.  Armed with a list of approved plants from Monarch Watch (www.monarchwatch.org) , I began to buy plants, being sure that the plants had not been grown with the use of pesticides.  The plot, about 20’ x 20’, was tilled many times and was raked over and over to remove grass, weeds, and roots.  It was levelled and worm castings were added to the already good soil.

I drew a rough graph of the layout starting with the plants that would be tallest in the back and moving to the front of the garden for the smallest plants.  The butterfly bushes, buddleia, were set out first to be planted.  How thrilled I was to have a butterfly come that morning!!  As we planted, we added other enriched soil to each spot.  When every plant was planted, we added mulch according to instructions for each type of plant.

Most of the instructions with the plants encouraged deep watering for the first two weeks to help get the plants established.  Our planting week in late May was an extremely hot week in Tennessee, so a watering system was put in place using a supply hose, Y connectors, and three long soaker hoses.  This arrangement allowed me to turn any soaker hose on or off at the site, and to turn the supply hose on or off at my house.  When the optimum locations for the soaker hoses were decided, we covered the hoses with mulch for aesthetic purposes and to reduce water evaporation.