Monday, February 28, 2005

Birds Well Fed, Empty Purse and so called Butterfly Attracting Plants

Sure as heck we're going to have to mortgage the house to pay for all this birdfeed. The flying tykes have gone mad over the seed and the suet as if its The Great Famine. I'm going to have to fill it up before the week is out. I'm thinking these birds are going to be so fat soon, I swear they won't be able to perch on the clothes line anymore. Its quite the entertainment, much better than TV. Our back garden is now a wonderful little haven to watch from the patio window. At first they were leary of us but I reckon by yesterday I could have been bellowing out "Jerusalem" (not that I do, mind) and they would have ignored me whilst busily feeding not two feet away from my nose.

I've decided that spring is here. I planted crocuses with mad abandon late yesterday afternoon. Obviously its a sure sign there will be a frost any day now.

Doppleganger Ursula wrote to tell me about plants to grow that will attract butterflies. So I marched on to the SAD store to look for agastache which I had never heard of, but some folks swear blind you'll have clouds of butterflies flitting round your garden if you plant them. Ursula has three pots of them, did admit that so far she hasn't seen hide nor hair of a butterfly. But she is giving them one more chance, which sounds ominous for their long term future in her backyard. Anyway I'd like to defend agastache's honour but I couldn't find them at the garden centre. I made do with two "generic" packages of seeds that attract butterflies and hummingbirds, which is probably way too optimistic for my suburban garden, but we'll give it a whirl. I seem to buy more items for the garden than actual food for the dinner table these days.

1 comment:

Wynn Bexton said...

Butterflies and hummingbirds are also attracted by certain colours of flowers. I think reds and deep pinks are favorites.