It is peak summer time right now. As I write this, it’s about 90 degrees outside in the shade and basically unbearable in the sun unless you’re sitting at the pool. Despite the afternoon heat, summer is by far my favorite season. Everything is alive in the summer. I love the greens of the trees and blues of the sky. I love the sprays of wildflowers neighborhood gardens. I love the endless amount and varieties of birds that visit my feeders and most of all I love growing in my garden the flowers and herbs that attract pollinators such as butterflies and bees.
If you know me personally, then you probable know I am completely obsessed with butterflies in the summer. I have spent the last few years raising butterflies from caterpillars. This summer I am raising Eastern Black Swallowtails, Monarchs, and Painted Lady butterflies and Luna & Polyphemus moths. You can follow along on these adventures on my Instagram @LattasLepidotera where it’s all butterflies, pollinators and native plants all the time.
While you might not be ready to jump head first into raising caterpillars on your kitchen counter like me, but did you know there are some simple steps you could take this summer to improve your yard for birds, butterflies and other pollinators? In the book Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard New York Times best-selling author Douglass W. Tallamy provides 10 concrete steps each of us can take to make our back yards and local ecosystems healthier. I was completely taken in by this book from the moment I started reading it. I truly think everyone should read this book.
A must read for anyone who cares about improving the environment!
If you are interested in how to attract more beautiful butterflies to your yard then I suggest picking up a copy of Planting for Butterflies which contains some basic tips for getting started with landscaping for butterflies as well as some interesting facts and tid-bits about caterpillars and the butterflies they become.
A primer for anyone looking to begin attracting butterflies to their yards.
If you have children at home then I can’t say enough good about A Butterfly is Patient which includes stunningly beautiful illustrations and walks children through the life cycle of butterflies as well as introduces readers to the large variety of butterflies in the world. I can’t say enough how much we love this book in our home.
If you’re more interested in plants than butterflies, Nature’s Remedies: An Illustrated Guide to Healing Herbs is an very beautiful primer with information about how to use herbs for energy, digestive health, skin care and probably most importantly in these times, emotional balance, stress management, and strengthened immunity & cold relief.
All of the titles listed above are available on my website. When my retail store Stomping Ground opens later this fall, they will be available there, too! Did you miss the news about Stomping Ground? You can read more in here in my past blog post and you can follow Stomping Ground on Facebook or Instagram. I just walked through the shop space today and I can’t wait for you to come in and see it all for yourselves when renovations are done and the doors open to the public!