Butterflies in the Summer Garden

Butterflies may be one of the least effective pollinators, but they sure are the prettiest.  Within the last two weeks, the gaudiest members of the butterfly family have been active in my little neck of the woods.  The swallowtails have been out in force, reminding me of God's generosity - a gift to be treasured.  There's an area where I work that is planted with masses of garden phlox and mealy cup sage, and it's simply alive with butterflies, especially swallowtails, and a host of other happy pollinators. This area is known as the healing garden and was created in memory of a little girl who tragically left this earth too soon.  Could there be a more fitting symbol of transformation, rebirth and resurrection than a butterfly?  What a gentle reminder of God's amazing grace.

Black form of a female eastern tiger swallowtail

  Obviously swallowtails are my favorite as I continually mention them, but who would disagree?  I love trying to photograph them and watching their unique personalities emerge.  The eastern tiger swallowtail nectars deliberately, opening it's wings slowly and keeping them wide as it investigates each individual flower.  The spicebush and pipevine swallowtails move at a faster pace making it somewhat hard to get a good photo and even harder to tell them apart.  My colleague Greg gave me a great clue the other day: spicebush are extra spicy and therefore have two rows of orange spots underneath their lower wings while pipevine swallowtail only have one row of spots.  The giant swallowtail greedily gulps nectar, fluttering its wings so rapidly as it flits from one flower to the next it hardly sits still long enough for a decent picture.  The zebra swallowtail is so elusive that I'm not sure if it nectars at all as I seem to only find them hovering over flowers almost if they are absorbing nectar rather than sipping it.

Eastern tiger swallowtail nectaring on garden phlox

Attracting butterflies is a snap.  Plant nectar plants in large groups or sweeps, in plenty of sunshine, to catch the eye of a fluttering butterfly.  Nix the pesticides - including organic ones - as butterflies and caterpillars are quite sensitive.  Provide puddling areas with dampened sand, and provide shallow dishes of rotten fruit.  And by golly, provide host plants for larvae - caterpillars prove to be picky little creatures who host on quite specific plant species.  Swallowtail larvae are no different, and each of the different species has it's own particular diet.

Eastern black swallowtail caterpillar munching on fennel

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

~Nathaniel Hawthorn

 

The rapid fluttering of a giant swallotail

Pipevine swallowtail on Peter's Purple bee balm

The zebra swallowtail seems to say "Catch me if you can!"

Zebra swallowtail puddling on sand at an east Texas lake

Cowboy Crack - aka Cowboy Candy

     We can sure grow some jalapenos here in the South.  Some peppers like Italian frying and poblanos give us fits in our climate, but jalapenos are a piece of cake.  And when you have a husband that looooves spicy food, you tend to grow more than a few spicy peppers and subsequently have more peppers than you know what to do with!  

     So you get a little creative with what you do with peppers.  There are the obvious things like salsa and grilled stuffed jalapenos, but then there are things that are a bit more involved like pepper jelly or candied jalapenos.  I learned how to can because of a bumper crop of hot jalapeno peppers.  And I can't begin to tell you how ADDICTIVE hearing the first "POP" of successfull canning can be!  I now have a canning addiction and peppers are soooo easy to work with.  Well, except for the intense burning sensation left behind from working with capsicum-charged fruits.  (Yes, peppers are fruits.)  Oh, and we shouldn't forget the wonderful nasal and occipital burn that occurs with cooking vast amounts of capsicum filled pods!  Oh.  And the sensation that occurs when you forget to wear gloves and forget to wash your hands before touching things like yours eyes or your....

     One of the drawbacks to making Cowboy Candy is that it takes a mountain of sliced jalapenos to make a scant 4-6 half pint jars.   And, there's always leftover syrup that seems like such a waste - except that when you are in the throws of cooking the jalapenos in the syrup, it never seems like it'll all fit together.  I can the extra syrup to use as a meat marinade, but I've yet been brave enough to try it.  I suspect that it's just the thing a pork tenderloin needs to be fabulous.  

     I'm always looking for an easier way to accomplish tedious tasks - like slicing 3 1/2 pounds of skin burning jalapenos.  So I cheat and used a good quality food processor and make 7 pounds of (nearly) perfect jalapeno slices in no time at all.  I made a double batch of Cowboy Candy which fit perfectly in my canner.  I actually slice more than the recipe calls for and still had enough syrup for 4 half pints.  I'm just going with it and calling it Sassy Sauce.  

     I'll share the recipe, but I won't drag it out step by step - something I loathe with some bloggers.  If you are not an experienced canner, PLEASE invest some time researching canning and food saftey.  Ball offers some wonderful online resources at www.freshpreserving.com - be safe with your canning and do your homework!

Cowboy Candy

Yields: 4 half pins 

Prepare canner and jars

3 pounds firm, fresh jalapenos, washed and sliced into 1/4 inch slices

2 c cider vinegar

6 cups white granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon celery seed

3 teaspoons granulatd garlic

1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

In a large saucepan, bring all ingredients except peppers to a boil over medium-high heat.  Reduce heat and simmer roughly 5 minutes.  Add peppers and simmer exactly 4 minutes.  Using a sloted spoon, ladle peppers into hot jars leaving 1/4" headspace.  Turn heat up on syrup and bring to a rolling boil.  Boil hard for 6 minutes, then ladle into jars leaving 1/4" headspace.  Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if necessary.  Wipe rims down with a paper towel moistened with white vinegar.  (I use a paper towel wetted with hot water and then dry rims with a clean paper towel.)  Center lids and tighten bands to fingertip tight.  Place jars in canner and process in boiling water for 10 minutes for half pints.  Turn off heat, remove lid from canner and let jars sit another 5 minutes.  Remove jars to a quiet resting place. Refrigerate any jars that don't seal.  Let jars mellow at least a month for the best flavor.  This is a great idea for late summer canning to save for Christmas gifts - if you can stand to let them go!  

Rules of Attraction - Heat Tolerant Perennials

     Let's talk movie stars and plants.  There are some movie stars that just smolder.  Those that are so easy to look at, it's hard to take your eyes away.  Sometimes, OK most times, it doesn't always matter if they have talent; although talent is almost always present as looks only go so far.  But then there are those whose looks aren't in the Ryan Reynolds/Bradley Cooper realm.  Nonetheless they are well in the realm of handsome, perhaps enhanced by talent and personality enough to catapult "quirky and handsome" to "prince charming."  Sure we like those movies with the smoldering hunks, but when it comes down to it on a Saturday night Netflix search, don't we seek out the talents of Cary Grant or Colin Firth?  (Ugh, you caught me.  Their accents really get me, and of course I'm speaking to the fairer sexes with little regard to those interested in femme fatales - please feel free to insert your own examples.)

     Lesser calamint is the Colin Firth of the perennial plant world for me.  I fell in-like with it at Saul's Nursery during the Perennial Plant Association meeting of 2012 in Georgia.  I had many doubts that it would survive the heat and humidity a mere zone south of Atlanta, but I have slowly and steadily fallen in love with this plant.  I've situated it here and there at the SFA Gardens, in addition to my own landscape where garden space is limited, yet lesser calamint demands two locations.
      The tiny flowers are born on fairly long racemes and are mostly white with hints of blue.  Despite their size, the flowers are present in great numbers.  The foliage when brushed is mostly minty, and otherwise pleasant.  I can't begin to tell you how busy the pollinators are on these flowers.  It's definitely a plant that dances under the weight of it's many visitors.  The honey bees that have taken residence (for the second time) in our chimney are thrilled that this is in our landscape.  The native bumble bees are happy too.  I love finding them asleep on the flowers in early morning.  At first I thought they were drunk on nectar, but they are actually male bees who don't have a nest to go home to. 

     Plants are happiest when grown in a sunny spot with well-drained soil.  I have actually had great results in sand, clay as well as amended soils.  Cut plants back by about 2/3 when flowers begin to look tired.  This will encourage the foliage to flush and will entice more blooms to appear. 
     Lesser calamint is an attractive enough plant that grows on you with every passing attribute, much like certain movie stars who don't hit you upside the head with devastatingly good looks, but reel you in with the "whole package."  I'm eager to hear what my Bayou City AND my Hill Country friends in Texas have to say.  That's a real stamp of approval if we can all grow it....and I suspect we can!

Perennials for Hot Gardens and Hot Gardeners!

      At a recent horticulture trade show, I was on a mission to find starts of Salvia 'Amistad' - a gorgeous guarantica hybrid with fluid, dark purple flowers.  My colleague and I approached a liner farm with an excellent reputation and an equally excellent repertoire of plant varieties, and we asked about the salvia on our wishlist.  After we explained the genetics, noting that it would probably not be hardy north of zone 7, we were told "We only grow REAL perennials."  Well how about that?!  According to the Royal Horticulture Society, the definition of an herbaceous perennial is: a non-woody plant that dies back to a rootstock each autumn and regrows in the following spring.  Ummm...'Amistad' does exactly that for me - square in my zone 8b garden - and it's not a REAL perennial?!?  Harrumph!

     So here it is: Southern Gardeners are DONE with the zone 6 perennial mafia pushing us around.  I personally promise to dedicate my work, trials, blogs and posts to HEAT and HUMIDITY tolerant perennials that are reliably hardy in zones 8, 9 and 10, with strong recognition for those hardy in zone 7 as well.  It's our time Southern Gardeners!  Let's grow what works for us, share new perennials that fit our criteria, and be darn proud of our southern roots - pun intended!
     I encourage you all to tag photos and posts about perennials that work in the southeastern United States with #zone8mafia so our voices begin to unify and those silly Yankees heed our call and take notice!