Butterfly/Plant Q? (1 Viewer)

Hi All,
Some of you might remember the thread we did last year about the best plants to attract Butterflies. The contributions were useful & helped me enormously when I planted a Butterfly friendly patch in the garden.

The plants doing well include Buddleia, Ice Plant, Lavender, native Primroses & Bluebells etc. I was too late for Michaelmas Daisey last year & it's too early yet this year, but I do plan to plant them. I understand Butterflies love them.
Today I've planted some brightly coloured bedding plants to attract Butterflies & Bees.

My question is about wild Garlic (see pic below) I love the way it grows randomly throughout the garden & if anyone is familiar with Christine's Garden BBC2, she stopped her car on a country road to marvel at it.
(great programme, highly recommend)

Anyway as the name suggests, this plant has a strong odour and I was wondering if this might affect the Butterfly area and deter them.

Does anyone know if Wild Garlic deter Butterflies & Bees & has anyone got any more handy Butterfly tips?

Bye for now all.

Hi Pie,
Dont take this as gospel but your pic looks more like bluebells or harebells. Wild garlic has broader leaves and clusters of tiny upright star shaped flowers on a single stalk.
I dont know about the butterflies, but the bees will visit it.


Best wishes

P.S. I like to plant 'native' so for the flutterbyes I've put in cranesbill, field scabious, agrimony, cowslip and cornflowers ~ although I had to give in and put in a butterfly bush too...lol. Oh and the good old fashioned nettle for the butterfly to lay their eggs on.

Hi Pie.

The wild garlic we have attracts bees and a species of tiny powder blue butterfly that we have here in Ohio. Our White Cabbage Butterflies visit the garlic too ... on their way to laying eggs on our veggies. LOL! I don't know who it would attract in your garden but at least some species are attracted to it.

Lydia

Hi Pie,

Dizzy's right in that the Flowers in your photo aren't Wild Garlic, they appearto be a very early form of Bluebell to me. They aren't Harebells, as they're a deeper blue and more singular flowers

The link here shows the Wild Garlic http://www.ppdl.purdue.edu/PPDL/weeklypics/3-10-03.html Anoth one here shows it at it's best http://www.pbase.com/abwhitt/image/17283440

Then there's a pic of Harebells at this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/in_pictures/ecards/nature/index.shtml

I've never seen Butterflies on W Garlic here, but you never know. I suppose some Insects are attracted to it, though I don't know for sure; tap it into google and see what it says. Another great attraction for Bees, Butterflies and Hoverflies etc is Buddliea which grows very quickly, well worthy of space in your garden Pie! Good luck with as many as you can get; I hang out of the window (just a bit) with my camera for some great macro shots. Best of luck with that garden.

Sue.

pie said:

if anyone is familiar with Christine's Garden BBC2, .

Click to expand...

Hi Pie,
We love Christine!!!!!
What a character isn't she? lol! :bounce:
Unfortunately I can't answer your question tho but agree with everyone that your pic is definitely not Wild Garlic.....ours here is only in leaf and the flowers are different too,sorry!
When they do flower I'm pretty sure that both Bess and Butterflies would be attracted by them and not put off by the smell.....I'll keep an eye out and get back to you!
Best wishes to all,

Hi Pie,

It's strange that you ask this as the gardener on our local BBC is very fond of encouraging listeners to buy something made from cultivated garlic, said to deter all manner of pests from greenfly to slugs! I'm sure the true wild garlic (which I agree isn't shown in your pic) would not put bees or butterflies off, its a native plant and if they don't like it they won't feed on it.

As well as being a horticulturalist Christine does love wildlife, her and her sidekick Reg are real characters and you can't help warming to them.

The individual flowers of Buddlieia die very quickly and are not a pretty sight on pale varieties so,can I reommend a variety called "Black Knight".It is deep purple so the dead flowers are not as obvious. Cut off all dead racemes and you will get lots more flowers on side shoots.It's bloomin' marvellous.

maurice

Hi All,

Ah! Ive just figured out how I assumed it was Garlic! Last year I asked for a poss id without posting a pic. It was growing wild throughout my garden, my description was, small white flowers with strong "spring onion" smell & shape to the root. Someone must have suggested Garlic & I took it as red!
That'll learn me!! LOL!

Sue Thank you so much for posting the links. I wonder if my plant could be the flowering wild onion shown in the link? It has a definite onion smell & the roots look similar. I will pull a few out & compare them tomorrow.
I love the ecards in the 2nd link Sue, arent the pics fabulous?
I planted a Buddleia last year Sue, no sign of flowers yet but I guess it's too early. Looks like I need to investigate a bit more.

Dizzy Thank you for the id prompt, I'm going to do a bit more research, I would love it to be Bluebells but the onion smell makes it unlikely.
(I think!) LOL!
Will also look up Cranesbill, F'scabious & Argimony. Ive heard of the others but not these. There is still plenty of space in the flutterby garden to plant more varieties.
Lydia It's funny how species unfamiliar to the UK sound so exotic! The Powder Blue sound so lovely, some species of Blue are declining in the Uk and becoming rare. The Large Blue was declared extinct in 1979 but has been re introduced using butterflies from Sweden, but still rare.
I wonder if the Powder Blue has a UK equivalent?
Ruth It's great to hear Christine has lots of fans! & like Bea says, her sidekick Reg is also a character. I'm so pleased she got the job with the railway, I hope they show how that progresses, I reckon they should make a programme about it.
Bea Thank you for the tip about using cultivated garlic, I will look into that, it takes forever to spray my plants with w/up liquid & water to get rid of greenfly.
Maurice Thank you for the information about the Black Knight variety of Buddliah. I must admit, Buddliah is not the prettiest plant, I planted it because of its reputation for attracting butterflies so any improvement is welcomed. My garden centre is very helpful, so I will ask about it along with the plants Dizzy suggested.

Thank you all, I'm off to do some research & pay my overdue subscription to the Butterfly society eek!

Our Blue is on the decline too. One would fit on your thumb nail when the wings are expanded. I'll try to find a link to the butterflies I am talking about.

We let thistle, wild garlic and other "weeds" bloom in our garden so the Blue's and other butterflies continue to visit and at least have a meal.. We use no sprays for weeds or insects and are rewarded with flocks (if that's the right term) of the tiny blue butterflies, as well as toads and other inhabitants.

We ALL share the garden and leave it so the other species can enjoy it too.

L.

Pie - butterflies love Verbena too - a pretty purple flower.