Tom Terrific

Butterfly Gardening.Org

Bring Butterflies into Your Yard

9016 Robyn Rd
St Louis MO 63126
Phone: 314-849-6114

Butterfly and Garden Diary

One of the tools I use to keep track of my garden and butterflies is a Butterfly and Garden Diary. It can be a nicely bound Journaling book with blank pages, an inexpensive spiral notebook or you can keep notes on your computer. Any way is fine, but do it on a regular basis because the odds are you don't have a photographic memory. I keep a spiral notebook and pen in a recloseable bag in my garden cart so when I see something I want to remember I can easily write it down. I then later transfer my notes to the computer.

The idea is to keep track of how your plants are doing and which butterflies are visiting your garden, when, and what host plants seem to be successful. I generally only give plants two to three years to prove themselves valuable.

One of the Gardening "Wisdoms" you need to remember for perennials is:
The first year they sleep.
The second year they creep
The third year they leap.

So just because a plant doesn't do much the first year, don't give up on it.

If you're having trouble with a particular plant, transplant it to a different location and see if it does better there. I prefer to transplant in the early spring when plants are just starting to wake up. You can also transplant in the fall, the advantage being you know exactly what you're moving. In the spring it's harder to remember which plant is which since they don't have their foliage or flowers yet.

Video Diary
The other diary tool I use is my video camera. I use it to capture the garden plants and butterflies at regular intervals during the year. It later gives me visual clues as to how specific plants and butterflies did during the year. In January or February I review the video from the previous years as I'm beginning to plan for spring.

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