Butterfly garden in 2021

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

In 2020, my sister moved in with me and my husband. She never had an outside flower garden, so we embarked upon planting some from seeds and bulbs.  We bought a “Butterfly Garden” set of bulbs and we planted them in March, 2021. It took a while for the bulbs to sprout. Each day was an adventure in seeing which bulbs would have some growth.  And then we wanted to see the flowers.  In June, the flowers started blooming.

Of course, we made many mistakes.  The main one being that we planted the bulbs in pots instead of in the ground, so there were some “scraggly” looking flowers in the end.  But, to our joy, they bloomed and the butterflies came. We had many small, white butterflies, some brown moths, bumblebees and other small insects.  One day, we saw this magnificent butterfly — not once, but twice!  We even had a hummingbird come to our garden.

The days are now getting shorter and we need to see what to do with the garden.  It’s still a wonder to view the growth and trajectory of our plants.  Next year, we will make room for the bulbs to have their own space in the yard–not confined to pots and hopefully even more magnificent!