See My Butterfly Meadow

Part of our yard is a butterfly meadow, also sometimes called the prairie garden or — when the milkweed and thistle go to seed — the cloud garden.  It consists of shoulder-high prairie grasses, clovers, wild strawberries, blackberries, black raspberries, milkweed, thistle, Queen Anne’s lace, and assorted other wildflowers.  My partner mows a path through it, and occasionally mows patches to reduce thatch, but mostly it grows as it will.

Monarch Caterpillar on Milkweed

To my great delight, the butterfly meadow has won the approval of its intended audience.  Look at the cute baby monarch butterfly!  After spotting this guy, I searched the other milkweed plants but I didn’t see any more caterpillars.  I did see several adult monarchs; we have lots of them.  To identify caterpillars in your yard, check out the “What’s This North American Caterpillar?” website.

Milkweed Bugs on Milkweed

These bright red milkweed bugs eat milkweed.  They don’t bother other plants, and they are interesting to watch.

Milkweed in Bloom

Milkweed is an important host plant for monarch butterflies.  It bears tiny pinkish flowers in big pom-poms that give off a sweet scent.  Special thanks to Lois McMaster Bujold for reminding me to appreciate milkweed:

Milkweed.  It’s just a weed, we have to go around and tear it out of the garden and the crops, but I think the smell of its flowers is prettier than my aunt’s climbing roses that she works on and babies all the time.  Sweeter than lilacs.  Nobody else thinks the flower heads are pretty, but they are, if you look at them closely enough.  Pink and complicated.  Like wild carrot lace gone plump and shy, like a handful of bitty stars.

– Fawn Bluefield, in The Sharing Knife: Beguilement

Yellow Clover

Of course, the butterfly meadow contains more than just milkweed.  This is a patch of yellow clover, also called least hops clover.  Its tiny yellow flowers attract various insects.  Like other clovers, this wildflower binds nitrogen into the soil.

Red Clover

Red clover attracts many butterflies and other insects with its dark pink flowers.  I like to pick the flower heads and carefully pull off the florets to suck out the sweet nectar.  No wonder butterflies love this plant!

Queen Anne's lace

Queen Anne’s lace is a kind of wild carrot.  It grows tall, with finely divided gray-green leaves and huge pannicles of tiny white flowers.  Sometimes the flowers have a dark red spot in the center of the flowerhead.  Although not native to America, these flowers attract many insects with their sweet, dusty-honey scent.

Blackberry Bush with Fruit

At one end of the butterfly meadow, blackberry and black raspberry plants ramble through the grass.  They started out as two tidy rows.  Then they got bulldozed, and … spread.  Eventually I want to reorganize them into rows, but for now, they run wild.