PROTECTING WHAT WE LOVE

Editor's Note:  This week's guest blogger is my friend Linda Love, also lovingly known as Nana Butterfly.  You can meet her and learn more about butterflies at Blackbeard's Cove Family Fun Park in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.


As I watched the sun rise over Sullivan’s Island on Sunday morning I noticed 13 stately pelicans flying gracefully in a line looking for breakfast. My first thought was you guys are so lucky because your cousins on the Gulf Coast can’t do this anymore. How horrifically sad this oil spill is for all who live on this planet. We can’t imagine what the long term effect this catastrophe will have on all who live in the ocean and on the land.

The frustration of this event causes everyone to say “What can I possibly do?” After pondering this for awhile on my walk I thought we can’t act globally; we can only act locally. Having raised butterflies for the last 12 years I immediately thought of what I do locally and what almost everyone of you can do also. You too can make a difference right in your backyard.

With all the housing growth and deforestation in this area we can replace the natural plants with indigenous plants that take our summer heat, don’t require spraying of pesticides and support the growth of butterflies, bees and hummingbirds.

Mother butterflies will have up to 100 eggs in them and they search constantly for a certain plant to lay their babies on so that they can mature to large caterpillars. If she does not find the specific plant she will die with her eggs in her. There is a long list of plants that supplement the butterflies but to name a few: parsley, dill, fennel, passion vine and milkweed. These plants are hardy and prolific growers with most of them in the perennial category (They come back year after year).

For a quick guide to planting for butterflies here is a simple site: http://www.thebutterflysite.com/create-butterfly-garden.shtml

Butterflies also need nectar sources of blooming flowers but we do have an abundant source of these along our roadsides and in our yards. If you would like to have these cute little creatures pictured here in your backyard to observe and protect just plant the host plants and wait for the mothers to come.

Thinking of my favorite quote on nature I know how true it is that more knowledge will be needed to counter act the devastation in the Gulf will require.

“In the end we will protect only what we love, we will love only what we understand and will understand only what we have been taught”.