- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“Gimme more, gimme more, gimme more!” seems to be the mantra of the rich and famous and the faux rich and famous.
From my perspective: It's better to watch a monarch caterpillar chew on milkweed leaves than to yearn for a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes. Frankly, I wouldn't know a Jimmy Choo if it stepped on my hiking boots. But I would know if a monarch fluttered down and touched me on the hand.
I cannot recognize the fragrance of the world's most expensive perfume, Annick Goutal Eau d'Hadrien – $441.18 per ounce—I looked it up. But I do know the aroma of a honeysuckle beckoning a honey bee.
I wouldn't know a Louis Vuitton designer bag from or a Chanel but I do know this: the old and tattered camera bag slung over my shoulder is a faithful workhorse with a purpose.
I wouldn't know Dolce & Gabban jeans from Robert Cavall but I do admire the genes of a monarch butterfly and a honey bee.
I wouldn't know a princess-cut diamond from an emerald-cut diamond but I do know that the shape of a lady beetle is a cut above.
For me, the glow of a diamond on a finger pales at the glow of a monarch on milkweed. “Precious” is not the stone but what just eclosed from a chrysalis.
So, today as we give thanks with our family and friends, this question begs for answer: Do we own our possessions or do our possessions own us?
Life should not be about pursuing and protecting our materialistic possessions but pursuing and protecting our passions. Such as exploring the wonderful world of insects...
Hap-bee Thanksgiving!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you look closely, you'll not only see the cycle of life in your garden, but art as the center of life.
Take the Gulf Fritillaries. They're a stunning orangish-reddish butterfly (Agraulis vanillae) with silver-spangled underwings. It's a delight seeing them laying eggs on their host plant, Passiflora (passionflower vine), watching an egg develop into caterpillar, a caterpillar form a chrysalis, and an adult eclosing.
If the light is just right, the tiny yellow egg, about the size of a period at the end of this sentence, glows. Then see,,,
- A caterpillar inching along on a passionflower vine
- An empty chrysalis or pupal case hanging like a broken chandelier.
- A male and female becoming one
Butterfly expert Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, says this is a good year for Guld Frits. He has studied the butterflies of central California for more than four decades. Check out his research website, Art's Butterfly World.
Shapiro says the Gulf Fritillary is a long-time resident of California. It was first documented in Southern California in 1870s. "It first appeared in the vicinity of San Diego in the 1870s,” he says. “It spread through Southern California in urban settings and was first recorded in the Bay Area about 1908. It became a persistent breeding resident in the East and South Bay in the 1950s and has been there since.”
Shapiro says it “apparently bred in the Sacramento area and possibly in Davis in the 1960s, becoming extinct in the early 1970s, then recolonizing again throughout the area since 2000.”
Thank goodness for Gulf Frits!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Last Dec. 27 at the Natural Bridges State Park, we saw dozens of monarchs about 80 feet up in the eucalyptus trees. When the sun broke through the trees, assorted birds targeted them, scattering them like mosaic paper kites, much to the awe and aahs of the crowd below.
"Monarch butterflies are among the largest members of the family Nymphalidae in North America. Their caterpillars store toxic chemicals called cardiac glycosides in their bodies from the milkweed they eat. Cardiac glycosides make vertebrates like us quite sick, so don't eat a monarch butterfly or caterpillar if you can help it. The chemicals remain in the adult butterfly bodies as well but tend to be concentrated more in the wings than in the body. Interestingly, cardiac glycosides seem to have very little effect on insect predators and parasites."
"The annual North American migration begins as early as August. Populations west of the Rockies migrate to the Pacific Coast with overwintering roosts along the central California coast. One of the best known of these is in Pacific Grove, California. Populations east of the Rockies migrate to central Mexico. Adult monarchs typically only live a couple of months, although they can live up to 5 or 6 months so the individuals that emerge in early summer do not migrate. Each generation takes between 5 and 6 weeks from egg to adult. The last generation of the summer goes into migratory mode. They stop reproducing and fly in a linear fashion to one of the overwintering sites. These individuals generally do not begin reproducing until the following spring in February or March when they leave these sites and move north from the Mexican site or north and east from the Pacific Coast."
Welcome back, monarchs! You're now fueling up for mass migration.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And when you do, you'll be helping the bees, butterflies, beetles and bats.
In June, the National Pollinator Garden Network launched the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge, hoping to register one million pollinator gardens throughout the country within a two-year period.
The gardens? They can be public or private gardens or landscapes that support pollinators. If you don't have access to a garden, you can fill pots with pollinator plants and grace your deck, patio, balcony or windowsill.
The Porland, Oregon-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, an international nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat, is a partner. Communications director Matthew Shepherd wrote a blog last June challenging us all to help the pollinators. The Garden Network, coordinated by the National Wildlife Federation, is an outgrowth of the White House's National Pollinator Strategy. "It draws together nearly two dozen nonprofits and organizations with a shared aim, to make gardens better for pollinators nationwide," Shepherd says.
Your garden should offer a diversity of plants rich in nectar and pollen. No pesticides. That bears repeating. No pesticides. And don't mulch your entire garden; leave some bare soil for solitary bees to nest. And it's good to install bee condos for leafcutter bees and blue orchard bees.
You can register your garden on the SHARE website where "visitors will be able to visually track the progress of the campaign," according to the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge. "Registrants can upload photos and videos of their sites, and the map can be sorted by garden type. In addition, a metric to assess pollinator garden actions across multiple organizations will be in effect as the campaign progresses."
What's in Matthew Shepherd's garden in Beaverton, Ore.?
- Apple
- Bee balm
- Black-eyed Susans
- Blanket flower
- Bleeding heart
- Bugle
- California fuchsia
- Columbine
- Cranesbill
- English lavender
- False indigo
- Foxgloves
- French lavender
- Giant hyssop
- Grape hyacinth
- Great northern aster
- Helebore
- Jerusalem artichoke
- Lamb's ear
- Narrow-leaf coreopsis
- New England aster
- Oregon grape
- Pear
- Phlox
- Plains coreopsis
- Prairie coneflower
- Purple coneflower
- Raspberry
- Rhododendron
- Riddell's goldenrod
- Rosemary
- Salvia
- Showy milkweed
- Snowberry
- Tradescantia
- Wood rose
- Wood strawberry violets
"The front is sunny, the back a shady forest edge—part of the reason for the diversity of plants," Shepherd noted.
In our bee/butterfly garden in Vacaville, Calif., we've planted milkweeds (host plant of the Monarchs), passionflower vine (host plant of the Gulf Fritillaries), English lavender, salvias, blue beard, catmint, lantana, Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia), Photinia, butterfly bushes, honeysuckle, blanket flower, California poppies, alyssum, gaura, California fuchsia, crape myrtle, African blue basil, cherry laurels, foxgloves, sedum, dwarf bulbine, oregano, rock purslane, cosmos, zinnias, tomatoes, cucumbers, pomegranates, olives, lemons and tangerines, to name a few.
We're feeding the bees, butterflies and beetles. And other pollinators, such as hummingbirds and moths. We're not feeding the praying mantids. They're feeding themselves.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Standing on her front porch last Wednesday morning, overlooking the Dutchman's pipevine that her mother Della planted in the 1920s, Louise Hallberg is a picture of enthusiasm, dedication and sincerity--or what her docents call her “indomitable spirit.”
Her butterfly sanctuary, a non-profit corporation since 1997, has drawn more than 30,000 visitors, including scores of wide-eyed children and their teachers and parents butterfly enthusiasts, gardeners, and nature lovers. “Over 1000 visitors came on our Open Gardens Day on June 28,” she says. Many visitors come from out of the county, the state, and the country, she said.
Her expression turns to concern. I"'m terribly concerned about the drought. We've very low on rainfall. It was 105 on Sunday. It's been so hot, so long.” She is deeply concerned about the decline of butterflies. “I've tracked the butterflies here since 1992,” she relates. “We're not getting the numbers we used to.”
Louise Hallberg, who will be 99 next January, was born on the family farm. Her grandparents, John and Louise Neta Pearson, initially purchased 40 acres and expanded it to 130 acres, growing hops, berries, cherries, prunes, pears and apples. The oldest of their three children, Alfred, later took over the farm, and he and Della--the one who planted that Dutchman's pipe---raised two daughters, Louise and Esther.
“I remember when my mother found the Dutchman's pipevine growing along a country road and brought it here and planted it,” Louise recalls. “Look at it now."
Louise studied at Santa Rosa Junior College and UC Berkeley, majoring in political science. Then she worked 35 years as Santa Rosa Junior College registrar, retiring in 1975.
But it was the pipevine swallowtails that continued to spark her interest and what led to the formation of the butterfly sanctuary. She monitors the populations of many species of butterflies, keeping careful records. The numbers keep dwindling but not her passion.
On our visit, we enjoyed the ponds, the vivarium, the “secret garden,” butterfly creek, pipevine theater, the woodpecker granary, the meadow garden, and the weather station that her family has monitored and maintained for more than three decades. .We glimpsed the Gravenstein apple orchard and ladders leaning up against the trees, a scene from yesteryear that never changes.
"We add new plants (funded by donations) every year," Hallberg says. The Hallberg Butterfly Gardens, in western Sonoma County, are open by appointment for docent-guided tours from April 1 to Oct. 31. Appointments are offered Wednesday through Sunday, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. (Contact the tour and volunteer coordinator (707) 591-6967 or email her at leah@hallbergbutterflygardens.org to arrange a visit.) The non-profit corporation offers books, posters, t-shirts and other gifts. It annually hosts an Open Gardens Day in June that includes a plant sale. Louise Hallberg continues to publish her newsletter, aptly named "The Pipevine."
Meanwhile, during our visit, the red-spotted pipevine swallowtail caterpillars went about munching the leaves of the Dutchman's pipevine, while butterflies laid their eggs on their host plants: the monarchs on the milkweed and the anise swallowtails on fennel.
We thought back to the conversation on the front porch with this remarkable 98-year-old "Butterfly Lady of Sebastopol" and her love of the swallowtails, monarchs and dozens of other species of butterflies--and the worries she harbors, not for herself, but for the butterflies.
"It's been so hot, so long."