Dear $$firstname$$,

Open a Butterfly Cafe

JUST BECAUSE you don’t have a large yard doesn’t mean you can’t have a butterfly garden. In fact, a grouping of just a few flowerpots is all you need to start a butterfly garden at your doorstep, says Susan D. of Alma, Illinois.

“Since butterflies are small, they’re perfectly happy spending their feeding time in cozy places. At night, moths are attracted to fragrant flowers, too. Decks, patios, porches, balconies and window boxes all work just fine for mini gardens packed with nectar-rich flowers.”

You’ll attract a variety of flying flowers to even the smallest corner if you keep a few things in mind:

• • Do a little homework first to learn which butterflies are common to your area and what types of plants they like best. (Unless your deck or patio is huge, you’ll want to think small when choosing plants.) Be sure you include some “host” or food plants for the butterflies’ caterpillars, too.
• • The best gardens start at the drawing board. Planning is especially important for small gardens because of limited space. Sketch out a plan before selecting the plants.
• • Use an assortment of sizes, shapes and types of containers for a pleasing arrangement. Terra-cotta, wooden planters, half barrels and hanging baskets look great together. Fill them with a good potting soil mix and add some time-released fertilizer to help encourage continuous blooms.
• • Remember to water your plants frequently because moisture evaporates quickly from containers. Check them daily. You may want to use water-retaining crystals to help keep your soil from drying out.

Over the years, Susan has discovered some plant combinations that work well in container butterfly gardens. “I always have at least one flowerpot with bright pink pentas and red salvias. These flowers will bloom most of the summer and are always a favorite feeding spot.

“Another popular choice is old-fashioned purple heliotrope (which smells like cherry pie). I plant heliotrope in a large tall pot with dusty miller, baby’s breath and cascading pink petunias. Lemon-yellow snapdragons are the perfect complement to red salvia. As a bonus, salvia serves as a host plant for buckeye butterfly caterpillars.”

Other standbys are small asters, marigolds, sweet alyssum, impatiens and dwarf zinnias. Trailing plants like lantana, verbena, fuchsia and cascading petunias work well, too, especially in hanging baskets.

Start your butterfly cafe now and you’ll find yourself visiting as often as the butterflies do. The conversation may not be great—but the action is sure to be nonstop!

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Hummers Aren’t Just Landlubbers

TO ATTRACT hummingbirds, you don’t need a yard full of pretty flowers. “In fact,” writes Ralph P. of Anchorage, Kentucky, “my wife, Jan, and I don’t even have a yard. But we still get lots of hummers to visit our summer home—a houseboat docked on Lake Cumberland near Monticello.

“Our boat slip is anchored out in the lake. There’s no way to get to it except by boat…or by wing, like the hummers do. They arrive in April and May and stay until September. We hang nectar feeders out on our front and rear decks.

“The birds are very tame. If I put my hand under the feeders, they’ll perch on a finger and eat. They’ll even sit on my fishing rods while I’m fishing.

“When we leave our dock and go out on the lake and tie up in a cove, the birds sometimes follow us. They eat as we’re moving along. We’ve traveled as far as 40 miles and still had hummers at our feeders.

“The birds that don’t accompany us are waiting when we return. The dock owner loves birds, too, so the main dock also has feeders.

“Hummingbirds are our favorite, but we feed other birds as well, like ducks and geese. We even have a martin house at the end of a pier. It’s full of birds all summer long.

“In winter, we go back to Anchorage and feed and watch the backyard birds and squirrels. But we can’t wait to get here and see our hummers and martins each spring!”

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Tool Holder Gets a Stamp of Approval

READER Sylvia H. of Camp Verde, Arizona never has to hunt for her essential gardening items, thanks to a nifty recycling idea. Instead of throwing out an old mailbox, she painted it with a decorative scene, then had her husband secure it to a tree stump at the edge of her backyard flower garden.

“Inside, I put my gardening gloves, a clipper, a small ball of twine, a pruner and a dandelion digger,” Sylvia says. “This makes small gardening tasks easier because I’m not always going back and forth to the toolshed every time I need something.”

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Let Them Eat Pie...or Peanut Butter

SUET has been replaced at her house with leftover pie dough, says Linda B. of Middlefield, Ohio. “Our birds love it—we’ve attracted a Blackbumian warbler, Carolina wrens and many common birds. I’ll even make a batch of dough in between my usual pie-baking days to keep the birds happy. Simply mix 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup shortening, 1/4 teaspoon salt and just enough water to form it into a ball. Then put it out near your seed feeders and watch it disappear.”

In Magrath, Alberta, Kathy B. wanted to use up some old peanut butter by feeding it to the birds, but she didn’t save any of the peanut butter suet recipes she’d seen in past issues. “So I tried something simple: I used a butter knife to smear peanut butter into the bark of my ‘bird-feeding tree.’ I watched chickadees, sparrows, flickers, magpies, woodpeckers, jays and other birds enjoy this treat.”

Salt bricks aren’t just for deer, squirrels or rabbits, notes Esther D. of Mifflintown, Pennsylvania. “Much to my surprise, the birds—especially purple finches—like them, too.”

Want a ground-level birdbath for your yard, but the commercial ones seem a bit expensive? Do what Jacqueline W. did in Moberly, Missouri. “We made our own in-ground birdbath. It was easy and cost less than $15. We used a child’s snow saucer, a large bag of pea-sized aquarium gravel and a tube of clear waterproof adhesive. We coated the saucer with adhesive, pressed gravel into it and let it dry for several days. Then we placed it in the garden and filled it with water. “The result is very attractive. Best of all, the birds love our shallow bath.”

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Mom’s Gift Does Double Duty

FOR MOTHER’S DAY last year, one of her sons gave her a hanging basket full of lovely impatiens, recalls Carol W. of Needham, Massachusetts. “I hung the basket out by our backyard deck. That evening, as I glanced out my window to admire the flowers, I received an even better present—a ruby-throated hummingbird feeding at the flowers.

“My son, who’s also a bird lover, happened to be passing through the room. I quickly called him over to see the hummer. He was so pleased to have chosen a gift that attracted this extra-special surprise. I, too, was delighted—I’d been trying to attract hummers to my yard for years without success. It made for a memorable Mother’s Day.”

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She’s Got the Blues Big-time

SHE’S BEEN feeding birds for years, so when Charlene P. and her husband moved to a new home in Satsuma, Alabama, she was really sorry to leave behind all her feathered friends. “Then something happened that made it all worthwhile,” Charlene says.

“One day in early spring, I looked outside and saw two bluebirds eating seed off a cement slab in the backyard. I’d never seen bluebirds eat seed before, so I looked in a bird book and discovered these birds weren’t bluebirds—they were indigo buntings.

“During that first week, only a few showed up. I put out millet on the ground after learning that buntings are ground feeders. By the next week, I had more and more of these blue beauties show up…one afternoon, I estimated there were more than 100 in the yard at one time! This went on for almost a month.

“I learned that these lovely birds were on their way to nesting grounds in the Midwest and Canada. Now I can’t wait for them to pass through every spring.”

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