Butterfly Bush Changes

When my family first moved into our home one of the first things I planted was two butterfly bushes next to the back porch.  The bushes were on the south side and during the heat of summer blocked the sun from the porch area; they also blocked my view of my neighbors on the other side of the empty lot, and the one across the street who enjoys smoking outside early in the morning during the summer... so early that he generally hasn't put on a shirt yet.  Since I too enjoy my morning coffee and cigarette on the porch in the summertime, but do not enjoy the view of him, the butterfly bushes were a welcome addition to my yard.

Sadly, a year later butterfly bushes were deemed noxious weeds in the state of Oregon.  They were completely removed from all nurseries and if you live in an area in which they are considered a problem, you should not propagate them and remove all the seed heads at the end of summer to prevent their spread.  I love my butterfly bushes, partly because they are so easy to grow, which of course is how they became classified as noxious weeds to start with.  Luckily, they look pretty shabby when the flowers die off anyway, so deadheading them isn't an issue.  Each fall I take my shears out and slice off everything above the porch rail, then double check that no flower heads are left below that line.  They grow back beautifully every spring and attract a multitude of beneficials to my yard.


This post isn't about the bushes however, it's about the bugs.  After nearly four years living here my bushes have gone through three summers and I have noticed the changes in visitors to them over those three years.

The first year they were bombarded by little brown skipper butterflies, painted ladies, and swallowtails.  Obviously this was what I had planted them for, butterflies!  The weather that year was normal for western Oregon, warm wet Spring followed by a hot dry summer.

The second year there were dozens and dozens of hummingbirds, piles of carpenter and bumble bees, a few honeybees.  But almost no butterflies at all.  The only ones I did see were a few swallowtails.  That year the spring stayed cold much longer, and even summer was fairly cool.  Everyone complained that their tomatoes wouldn't ripen.

The third year was similar to the second, no skippers, no painted ladies.  Even fewer swallowtails.  Plenty of hummingbirds and bees.  There did seem to be a shift from the carpenter and bumble bees to more honeybees though.  Again that year the Spring cold stayed on long after it should have, I still had snap peas producing by the pound in July.  The summer was warmer than before, tomatoes ripened on time.

I am very curious about the shift in visitors to the bushes.  The butterfly bushes themselves have done great throughout.  I did water them daily the first year since they hadn't established a deep root system yet, I suppose the moisture level of the bushes may have attracted more butterflies.  I would be very interested to discover what is causing the change in bugs and birds each year.  Is it the weather? Or maybe something completely unexpected like a nearby field being sprayed or mowed and killing the butterflies before they hatch?  But if so, then why did I get so few bees the first year?

I will keep watching and see if I can work out some pattern in the next few seasons.

Deadheading Doesn't Mean Following Jerry Garcia Around

So say you bought a cute little pansy plant, it's brimming with blossoms, looking healthy and beautiful.  You bring it home from the nursery and gently plant it into a nice roomy pot hoping to have a large pansy plant pouring blooms over the sides of the pot in no time.

You water it daily, you add a little fertilizer when the blooms start to fade, and wait patiently for new blooms to follow in their wake.  Nothing happens.  The plant is healthy, it continues to grow, but there are very few new flowers coming and it's starting to look like a foliage plant instead of a flowering plant. 

Deadheading is the process of removing the dying blooms to encourage new flower growth.  Most gardeners already know this, and practice deadheading regularly.  More important than simply understanding that you need to deadhead your flowers is knowing why you need to, what happens if you don't, and what that translates to in other parts of the garden.

Plants are working with a limited amount of nutrients, sunlight, and water with which to grow.  Annuals have to do all of their growth, flowering, and seeding in one year.  So think about it this way, if you put a pansy seed in the ground the first thing it does is grow roots, stems and leaves; this is like a baby learning to eat before learning to walk or talk, the stems support the leaves which in turn reach to the nearest light source to feed the plant while the roots dig deep to support the growth and pull in nutrients from the soil.  So your little plant has learned to feed itself, next it will try to reproduce (luckily babies don't get a jump start on this one). Most plants reproduce by exchanging pollen between flowers, so the pretty pansy flowers you select are actually the plants sexual organs.  What lovely ovaries you have, little pansy!  Your plant develops these sexual organs in an attempt to achieve pollination (or fertilization), once a flower has been pollinated the petals will die off as they are no longer necessary to attract bees and other pollinators, and the plant must redirect it's limited energies to growing seed from the ovaries at the base of the flower.  Grow, fertilize, reproduce.  This is the basic life cycle of a plant. 

Where does the benefit of deadheading come in?  Your plant grows, puts out flowers to reproduce, then... you pluck the flowers and soon to develop seeds with them.  You have stopped the cycle, so the plant responds by trying again: reproduce! You pluck again before seed development. The flowers just keep coming as the plant struggles to meet the deadline of fall frost to have fully developed seed to grow the next season.

Apple and hazelnut trees grown out of control, pruning helps keep trees healthy.

A lot of new gardeners struggle with the concepts of deadheading, pruning, and pinching off new growth.  It's hard to accept that you need to remove healthy (and unhealthy) growth from a plant to improve it.  Even seasoned gardeners have difficulty pruning a fruit tree if they imagine all the fruits that branch might produce.  Keep in mind that growth is good, but some growth is not.  Overgrowth in a tree can cut down air flow through branches leading to mold and fungus growth, dead flowers left to seed on a annual will make it leggy and bare, and too many flowers in a tomato plant can lead to an overabundance of poor fruits. 

Remember that a plant is working with a limited nutrient supply.  Your apple tree or tomato may put on tons of flowers, but if they aren't able to pull up adequate nutrition from the soil and sun, the fruits that develop may be tasteless, small, or susceptible to pests and diseases.  Far better to trim down excess branches or flowers and ensure that the crop that reaches maturity is of the best quality.

My dad's property has an apple tree that has probably been there for eighty years, it is beautiful in full bloom.  Dad never pruned it, and insisted the fruits on it were not worth eating, several years ago one of the largest branches broke off and I helped him to remove it.  I told him it needed to be pruned, by at least 1/3 of the branches.  He was uncertain at first and was afraid it would harm the tree beyond recovery.  Finally I convinced him and we took out all but the 3 largest branches, and a few smaller ones.  The tree is still alive and I'm happy to report that the apples that year were some of the best he'd ever gotten from that tree.  Deadheading, pruning and pinching plants are methods of removing growth that impairs the plant's ability to produce the very best that it can.  Keep this in mind as you cringe and fret with pruning shears in hand.