Gardening in the Time of Climate Change

 

Designing and planting gardens for butterfly habitat is my passion project. I have certainly challenged myself by living in homes in three different continents over the last decade. But now that I’m back home in Virginia, I’ve rededicated myself to recreating my previous garden habitat, long destroyed by tenant neglect and aggressive invasives encroaching from all sides. 

Almost one year in, I’m finding that establishing a garden is more difficult and more expensive than it was a decade ago. The native plant craze has taken off, which I’m grateful for, but the price of high quality native plant material has skyrocketed. Luckily I have friends and neighbors who I helped in the past and they are now helping me. In exchange for hard labor in their gardens, I get the cast-off progeny from their successful habitats. I’ll take anything, from violets to ironweed, as long as it’s native, and especially if it’s a butterfly host plant. 

One of the unexpected challenges to establishing my garden, and it’s far from being lush so far, is the changing climate. The rain storms bring more rain in shorter times than in the past, leading to erosion and lost seedlings. The droughts are hotter and dryer, and last longer than I ever remember. I have to water seedlings, transplants and trees more often than ever before, just to keep them from expiring from one day to the next. This was surprising to me, because one of the main reasons I was originally drawn to native plants was their resilience to local soil and weather conditions. Now plants need more care, mulch and water.

The biggest disappointment to me this time around has been the lack of butterflies specifically, and bugs and birds generally. I was slightly  encouraged this month by assisting in the local annual butterfly count. The organizers know the best locations to find butterflies and we did see quite a few. This experience bolstered my enthusiasm and focused my efforts to support our local butterflies by providing the plants and conditions they need.

Just yesterday, I took a video inventory of my wildlife garden strip along the side of my property. Several of the perennials are in bloom, and I wanted to capture them before the approaching Tropical Storm Ophelia arrived, promising 50 straight hours of rainfall. While we need the water, I just wish it would arrive in more manageable quantity and frequency. My county is shifting how they will charge residents for storm water management, creating a new Stormwater Utility. Each household’s rate is determined by the ratio of hardscape to permeable surface, as determined by satellite image. Residents can apply for credits by doing certain stormwater retention practices, one of which is creating wildlife habitat. This is the reason I’m documenting the garden. Hopefully I can get a discount, but my overarching motivation is to support the butterflies, pollinators, birds, chipmunks, spiders, voles, and other things I don’t even know about (flying squirrels, I hope?). Life depends on it.

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So, in my yard this year I’ve seen one Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly in my wild cherry tree, and one Monarch on a potted Lantana that I was babysitting for my neighbor while she was on vacation. That’s it. That’s all. Birds I have many, but mostly because I’ve hung a bird feeder under the oak tree, and added two bird baths. Today, even during the windy downpour, I’ve spotted woodpeckers, nuthatches, cardinals, doves, housefinches, sparrows, chickadees and titmice. But honestly, during the two months I refused to fill the feeder, to let the groundcover recover, the birds were nowhere to be found. I hope that by diligently restoring my backyard wildlife habitat, the birds will return because of the nuts, berries, seeds, caterpillars, spiders and cover that they need, not for the junk food they crave. 

In scant one year, I’ve managed to purchase, adopt and start from seed at least a few of each of these native plants:

New York Ironweed, Blue Lobelia, Lungwort, Cardinal Flower, St. John’s Wort, Blue-eyed Grass, Sensitive Fern, Ostrich Fern, Golden Ragwort, Elephant’s Foot, Foxglove Beardtongue, Virginia Strawberry, Bluestem Goldenrod, White Wood Aster, Geum, Wild Ginger, Wild Petunia, Virginia Creeper, Dwarf Crested Iris, Common Milkweed, Obedient Plant, Witch Hazel, Elderberry Mountain Laurel, Joe-Pye Weed, Boneset, Pawpaw, Bee Balm and Purple Coneflower. Still surviving from my old garden are Sweetbay Magnolia, Mapleleaf Virburnum, Winterberry Holly, Inkberry Holly, Silky Dogwood, River Birch and Burr Oak. It’s an impressive list in writing, but when I look out my window, it looks pretty bare. I know it will take another year or two to get established. I’m just impatient. 

Recipe: Tacos from leftover BBQ

 Not a Garden Post! Well, if you use your own kale, lettuce, garlic, tomatoes and onions, then it is!

I made tacos tonight and they were so good that I wanted to post my own recipe to Pinterest so I could remember how I made them. I don’t know how to create a post on Pinterest, only repost from the internet. So I’m using my own blog to create the post and then repost to Pinterest. If this inspires you to cook this using produce from your own garden, then my work is done here. 

Buy way too much BBQ pork at a shack by the road in the country. Eat it for two days. Realize you still have half of it. Saute onions and garlic in oil. Add BBQ with some of the leftover sauce and vinegar that came with it. Add Some salsa for moisture and flavor. When it’s hot and flavors are married, remove it to a warming bowl. Add some olive oil to the pan drippings and saute shredded kale until it’s roasted. Sprinkle it with sea salt and cayenne pepper. Remove it to a warming bowl. On a hot oiled griddle, turn over corn tortillas with tongs until they are hot enough to melt cheese but not crispy at all. Sprinkle grated cheese on each one. Add a spoonful of BBQ pork to each one. Add a spoonful of sautéed kale to each one. Monitor the tortillas carefully. Just before they get crispy, fold each one in half with the tongs. Let them sit a minute more folded, until they just start to firm up on the bottom. Remove to a serving platter with a spatula.

Garnish with leftover cole slaw, chopped lettuce, tomato, BBQ sauce and vinegar, and salsa.

Back Home and Restoring My Native Garden

Since I’ve been back in town after more than a decade of traveling around the world, one of my primary hobbies has been restoring my garden after years of neglect. My renters took great care of the house while we were away, but the garden had gotten over-run with English ivy, bush honeysuckle, and masses of prolific little clumps of Spanish Bluebell, Hyathinthoides hispanica (also comes in white, which is even more invasive!) After years of research and training as a tree steward, I became convinced that growing a local native perennial woodland habitat in my yard was the way to go. Because native plants are adapted to our soil and climate, they require less maintenance and watering once they are established. If they are planted in the right spot, they keep coming back year after year. Native plants evolved with native wildlife. The plants provide food and shelter for wildlife including migratory birds and essential pollinators. Native plants and trees can prevent erosion on a hillside as well as or better than English ivy, which is a highly invasive non-native species that chokes out native plants and kills trees if it is allowed to climb up the trunk. Alternatives to English ivy are listed in the brochure ―Native Alternatives to English Ivy‖ published by Plant Nova Natives. Here is a link to the article: https://www.plantnovanatives.org/groundcovers  

According to the EPA, converting a traditional formal landscape and lawn to a natural landscape saves time and money and reduces water pollution, flooding, air pollution, noise pollution and your carbon footprint. It takes a while to establish a native garden. Do it little by little. Each year, convert a little more grass to garden. Each year leave a little wider leaf mulch area below every tree. And each year have fun by adding a few native plants, shrubs or trees. So far my best growers have been golden ragwort (a great English ivy alternative), sedum ternatum, greenheaded coneflower and purple aster. I haven’t had much luck with my phlox or my miniature Joe-Pye Weed, but I haven’t given up hope.

One of my greatest inspirations throughout my journey with native plants has been Douglas Tallamy, entomology professor at the University of Delaware. I met him at a conference just before leaving to go overseas, and he encouraged me to spread the message of the importance of native plants to sustaining life in self, everywhere in the world I go. And I believe I have done so. Read Doug Tallamy’s newest book, Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard

Back Block Biome

This is a project that I dreamed up during my TreeSteward training in 2008. I never got the chance to implement it because in 2012 we got transferred to Rome, and then Uruguay, and then Kosovo. Well, ten years later, I’ve just returned home. My garden is a complete shambles. Most of the native plants are gone, replaced by the invasive bush honeysuckle and English ivy that surround my yard. I’ve spent the end of fall and most of the spring beating it back, and planning the new design for my native plant garden. 

I never forgot about this Back Block Biome project, and little by little I’m co-opting the neighbors in my block to join me in creating a native plant oasis in the growing city where we live. This is more important than ever, since our neighborhood is quickly giving way to infill development, cottage tear downs that are replaced with massive mansions, only after removing every tree, shrub and blade of grass from the lots. So here, mostly to inspire myself to implement my project, I post here the plan. I’ll update the post with how successful I’ve been.

The Back Block Biome Project

The effects and success of gardening for biodiversity can be increased by joining with your neighbors to plant a variety of native plants, shrubs and trees to create a larger area for insects, birds and pollinators to inhabit. I've found that when I'm outside planting and maintaining my garden, my neighbors stop by and talk about what I'm up to. When they see the bees, birds and butterflies enjoying my tiny habitat, they're often inspired to try planting native plants as well.

Many of us live in urban or suburban neighborhoods where we have adjoining back yards in our block. A lot of people think that native plants are rangey, scrubby, leggy or pushy.  Sometimes they do spread out because they are so well suited to their native habitat, and also because sustainable gardening techniques don't advise using herbicides and pesticides, and so plants tend to thrive. Because of this opinion that some native plants are misbehaved, I advise people to relegate some large native perennials like Joe Pye Weed to the back corner of their yard.  This made me realize that if everyone in a backyard block did this, we would have an impressive contiguous area of habitat. Nobody has enough room or money to plant host plants and nectar plants for every pollinator in our area. But we can collaborate to provide habitat for the butterflies, bees, birds and bunnies that we all want to support and enjoy. 

I imagined holding a Back Block Biome party at my house, to explain my idea and share a list of plants and techniques to create an interconnected native wildlife habitat. 

Here is what I mean for a Back Block Biome.

For illustration purposes, I searched on Google Maps and chose a block behind the school where I used to teach. It's suburban/commercial, with single family houses and a couple of restaurants in the block. There's also a park and a library next to the school yard. I thought it might be cool to invite the restaurants, school and library to get involved in the project as well as a community support project. I marked in green the adjoining backyard area where native plants could be planted so birds and butterflies could benefit from a larger habitat area than if just one family did wildlife gardening.

I've learned that native habitat gardening is contagious.  Once neighbors see you enjoying your yard full of lovely plants that attract butterflies and birds, they will be interested in joining in. If you live in an area with adjoining yards, consider organizing a planting project. You'll get to know your neighbors better and help wildlife as well.  

When I taught at the school in this picture, we did an annual planting and clean up day. Teachers and parents worked together to make the school a nice inviting place. After everyone worked together, we had a good feeling of belonging to a community.

I hope you like this idea and give it a try. Use the links on the sidebar of this blog to get started on how to choose plants for butterflies and other wildlife. Hold a meeting or a party and share the information with your neighbords to create your Back Block Biome. Have fun and let me know how it goes.

My Montevideo Native Pollinator Garden

My Montevideo Native Pollinator Garden

For the last three years I've been studying the native butterflies of Montevideo and the plants they depend on for larval host plants and nectar plants. As I find the plants in nurseries or at friends' houses, I'm documenting the plants so others can find these plants and use them to design their own garden for butterflies, bees and the the rest of the ecosystem that these plants support. This garden plan should work well in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, and in surrounding areas of Montevideo such as Canelones and Maldonado.

While I acquired the plants at several different locations, the design was drawn and planted by Remi at Vivero Parati in Toledo Chico, Montevideo.

See my post "Montevideo Butterfly Garden Design" for a list of nurseries where I have bought native plants.

Check back here often. I'll be adding all of the native plants in my garden over the next six months.

The Plants

Dicliptera tweediana, "Canario Rojo"

Dicliptera tweediana is a small upright perennial herb native to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Its common name is Canario Rojo. Sometimes it's called Dicliptera squarrosa. There are some really good photos of it over on the blog Flora Bonaerense. It flowers in spring and fall and gets to be up to one meter tall. The flowers attract pollinators and hummingbirds. Hummingbirds this summer are most avidly visiting the Dicliptera and the Salvia guaranitica.

Canario Rojo likes wetter locations and lots of sun. Mine is doing fine in a border bed next to the lawn that receives daily sprinkler watering and afternoon sun. Deadhead the spent flowers to extend the flowering period, and cut back in the fall. This plants roots easily from cuttings. I think it self-seeds as well. I just found some seedlings in the side yard where the potted plant was stored until I got around to planting it in the butterfly garden.

Canario Rojo is host plant to two butterflies, the Mbatara' or Batara' (Ortilia ithra) and the Princesa Roja (Anartia amathea roeselia), according to Proyecto Panambi'.

In Mariposas de Uruguay, (Bentancur, Gabriela. (2011). Mariposas del Uruguay, Argentina, Brasil y Paraguay) it is noted that both of these butterflies can also lay their eggs successfully on Ruellia species.

This plant was hard to buy in Uruguay. Most nurseries don't have it. I was able to find it at Area Indigena in Balneario Solis. Silvia now sells out of her private nursery called Yosinama in Barrio Pinares, Maldonado. She can be found on Facebook as Yosinama Gardens, where she lists her cell phone number as 098821306.

Ruellia simplex, "Ruellia"

Ruellia simplex is native to Uruguay. Its common name in English is Mexican petunia or wild petunia, although it's not a petunia at all. It's found in wet areas, so it likes a wetter area in your garden as well.  The fantastic purple flowers bloom for a day and then fall off. A new set blooms the next day. This goes on for months in spring and summer. The fuzzy stems are green to burgundy.  The true green leaves have a tiny bit of the burgundy all around the rim. It's a truly gorgeous plant. It self-seeds easily with explosive seeds, and spreads by rhizome. These qualities make the plant invasive, and Ruellia will increase the size of its clump each year. You can cut it back or divide it in autumn or winter and share it with a friend. The hearty aggressiveness of Ruellia makes is quite invasive in other countries, where the butterflies that depend on it to nourish their caterpillars are not present. 

As stated in the entry above, Ruellia and Canario Rojo are host plants for caterpillars of the Batara' and Princesa Roja butterflies. This plant is available in nurseries in Uruguay.


Passiflora caerulea, "Mburucuya"

 Passiflora caerulea is known in English as blue passionflower. This and other Passion flower species are found throughout North and South America, where the local versions of the plant are usually the main host plant of the local population of the butterfly Agraulis vanillae known in English as the Gulf Fritillary or in Spanish as Espejitos.

Female Espejitos butterflies lay their eggs on the leaves or tendrils of the Mburucuya plant. The eggs hatch several days later and the tiny caterpillars eat the leaves, molting several times as they grow. Finally, the last molt converts them to a chrysalis that looks like a dead brown leaf hanging on a branch or a nearby wall.  After a few weeks the butterfly will emerge from the chrysalis and start the cycle again.



This Uruguayan species of passionflower is locally called Mburucuya. It's a woody vine with the fringed purple and white flower that gives it its name.  The fruit is edible. I have been growing this on a bamboo trellis in my garden for two years but have only gotten a couple of flowers and no fruit yet. The bright orange Espejitos butterflies visit it frequently and its caterpillars are eating it to death. The only solution is to plant more of it for them. It's hard to find in nurseries. They will usually try to sell you a Brazilian species with much larger, thicker leaves, because it also produces larger fruit.  But the local butterflies in Montevideo truly prefer the delicate palmate leaves of this local species.

I was able to buy some prepared cuttings of this vine at the nursery called Vivero Pachamama.  It's located on Av. Giannattasio in Pinar Sur, Canelones, Uruguay. Call ahead to make sure they have it in stock.

Seeds for Mburucuya are available from Psamofila, a new native seed company in Punta del Este. Check their Facebook or Instagram to find out where to buy the seeds in Montevideo.

Salvia uliginosa, "Bog Sage"

This 1.5 meter tall perennial sage has lovely little sky blue flowers that come and go on a spike. The delicate leaves are light green. The plant grows in a clump and spreads a little each year. It can be cut back to the ground in winter. It regrows from the roots in spring. You can get more blooms by cutting back spent spikes in summer. It grows well in full sun. The flowering season is quite long: winter, summer and fall. While I haven't found that this plant is a butterfly host plant, it is very useful to pollinators. The bees absolutely love it. In winter, little wrens have been eating the seeds from the spent flower stalks.

This plant works well in clumps because the bees like to just bumble from flower to flower without having to go too far from one to the other. It looks nice with clumps of other plants around it in different colored foliage and different heights.  In this picture the bog sage is surround by a clump of vira vira (grey leaves with white button flowers), rue (olive foliage with yellow flowers) and Ruellia (dark green leaves with deep purple flowers). See above for more information on Ruellia.

Salvia guaranitica, Black and Blue Sage or Hummingbird Sage

 This perennial herb is shorter than the bog sage, above, but its flowers are larger, the blue color is intense, and they flowers are contrasted with a black calyces.  The leaves are much larger than bog sage, a deeper green and heart-shaped.

They have an extremely long flowering season. We just passed the winter solstice and these plants still have flowers on them. They must not have any more nectar because the hummingbirds have stopped visiting them. But in the summer and fall, the hummingbirds were crazy for this plant. I only had two of them at the time, and I am certain that the hummingbirds, after checking out all of the flowers, would look at me as if to say, "Where are the rest of them? You didn't plant enough!" So I planted some more.

I bought some of these at Vivero Musacco and some by accident from someone else. They just bloomed one day on the edge of the bog sage and I was blown away by this plant.

Like the bog sage, this sage can be pruned in summer to encourage more blooms, and cut to the ground in late winter. Divide the clumps every few years if they spread too much. They are very hardy and do well in full sun and moist soil.

This is a good nectar flower for butterflies and bees.  The bumblebees can't fit inside the flower so they try to get at the nectar from the outside base of the flower where it meets the black calyx.

I read in several nursery guides that this sage has an anise scent, but I didn't notice it.  I also read that it had medicinal value as a sedative.





Salvia procurrens, Creeping Sage

This cute little sage is a ground cover with small light blue flowers very similar to the bog sage. Its round leaves spread out along runner stems and will cover a garden bed in weeks.  If it gets out of hand, and out of the bed, which it will, it's very easy to just pick up the end and pull it out or cut it back at the edge. Anything you cut or pull can be placed on the ground somewhere else and it will take root easily.

The flowers are visited by bees. Small birds forage for seeds under the leaves.




Senecio vira-vira, Vira-vira

Vira-vira is native to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, although it is very popular in the USA and UK, where it is known as Dusty Miller.

This perennial evergreen subshrub is in the Aster family. It's small white button flowers are very attractive to butterflies and other pollinators. Cut back the flower stalks after blooming to give the plant a nice silver mounding shape.

This plant does well in full sun and dry soil. It forms a mound about and half meter high and a meter wide. Some garden websites recommend removing the flowers because they aren't showy, but the flowers are the reason to have this plant in a pollinator garden.




Verbena bonariensis, Tall Verbena

 This local verbena is one of the tallest perennials in my pollinator garden.  It's not terribly showy, and the lavender flowers are really tiny.  It's listed on all the local pollinator lists as a must have because it's an important nectar plant for bees and butterflies.

The fact that it's tall and leggy, with slender sparse leaves, makes it a good plant for a back border, or as a sheer curtain.  This plant doesn't block other plants that are behind it. I didn't prune the verbena much this year unless it got brown and unsightly.  Tall Verbena will self seed if you leave the seeds on the plant to ripen.  I've done this so I'll probably get lots of seedlings in the spring.  Right now we are in mid winter, and I've noticed that it is starting to sprout at the upper levels of the stems. I don't want this to happen because it won't have a good shape next summer: too top heavy I think, with lots of spent woody stems.  If I prune the plant down low, it will resprout from the base instead of the tall stems.

Tall Verbena grows well in full sun and moist but not boggy soil. It will tolerate part shade as well.

If Tall Verbena is self-seeding around your garden where you don't want it, once you recognize the seedlings, it is easy to pull them out before they set seed.












Eupatorium macrocephalum, Pompom Weed

Eupatorium macrocephalum is common in fields and roadsides in Uruguay, but few people actually plant it in their gardens. It's a tall perennial that spreads by rhizome. In the winter the stalk dries up but has cute little button seeds on top. You can cut the stalks down to the ground in winter.  The plant will regenerate in spring as small rosettes emerging from the ground.  These will get nice and bushy, with fuzzy lanceolate leaves and fuzzy purplish stems.  Then suddenly they will sprout up, seemingly overnight to twice their height.  After this they will produce these lovely flowers that attract bees and butterflies for their nectar.  With their height, soft stems and large flowers, some of the stalks can tip over.  I cut them back and that stimulated some new flowers to grow.

Eupatorium macrocephalum is allelopathic, meaning it puts out chemicals that suppress the growth of other plants around it.  I haven't seen this yet, as I've only had it one year. Once you recognize the rosettes, if they get too numerous, they are very easy to pull out.

Another local native plant in the same genus is Eupatorium inulifolium. It has white flowers and a lovely perfume and attracts even more bees and butterflies that the purple variety, I've noticed.  I actually ordered E. inulifolium from my nursery, and was surprised to see it bloom purple.  A little research led me to the conclusion that I had in fact received E. macrocephalum.

Here's a photo of the leaves. This is several plants seen from above. Remember to group clumps of the same plant together.  It looks nice and it helps the birds and insects locate the plant and easily jump from flower to flower for its nectar.

These flowering plants in the aster family used to be in the same genus as Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium maculatum. But recently, many of the 800 species in the genus Eupatorium have been moved to other genuses.  Joe Pye Weed is now called Eutrochium maculatum, and I've seen Pompom Weed listed as Campuloclinum macrocephalum. There have been a lot of changes in the scientific names of plants in the last couple of years due to advancements in genetic studies.

Baccharis trimera, Carqueja

Carqueja is one of the most recognized plants in Uruguay.  It is a small perennial subshrub in the aster family. Native to most of South America, it is often seen along roadsides and in the prairie landscape.  It has bright green leaf matter all the way down the stem to the base, and the leaf matter is separated into three wings. The stems are segmented and the flowers emerge at the segment. The small cream-colored composite flowers are fragrant and attract pollinators.

Carqueja grows readily in flower gardens and vegetable gardens. It reaches about 70 cm and will form a clump that gets larger each year. It is easily divided and transplanted to other areas.

This plant is prized in Uruguay for its medicinal value.  Uruguayans add a 2 cm length of stem in their thermos of hot water used for making yerba mate.  They will tell you that it helps with digestion and liver function. There are many studies showing that it has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antihepatotoxic and analgesic effects.





NOTE: During 2019 I will be updating this post with photos and descriptions of the ecological value of all the native plants in my Montevideo native plant garden.
Upcoming plants will include:


Begonia cucullata
Solanum
Solidago
Aspilia montevidensis
Cestrum parquii
Asclepias
Aristolochia littoralis
Duranta
Araza'
Ipomoea alba
Ruta
Combretum
Oxalis
Yerba Mate, Ilex paraguariensis
Marcela, Achyrocline satureioides

Annual Herbs

Vines

Perennial Herbs
Malva parviflora
Nicotiana alata
Glandularia dissecta


Sub-Shrubs
Cafecillo, Senna scabriuscula

Woody Shrubs
Lantana camara
Pitanga
Rama Negra, Senna corymbosa (evergreen)
Chirca, Eupatorium buniifolium
Guayabo del Pais, Acca sellowiana (evergreen)
Jazmin del Uruguay, Guettarda uruguensis (evergreen)
Plumerillo Rosado, Calliandra parvifolia
Cedron del Monte, Aloysia gratissima

Trees
Lapacho Rosado, Tabebuia heptaphylla
Espinillo
Coronilla
Anacahuita, Schinus molle
Ceibo
Palo Borracho

Arbol de Artigas: Heroic Tree of Uruguay

What's Blooming in Montevideo Now? Arbol de Artigas

If you see large dark green trees in the distance this month with a canopy of bright yellow flowers, chances are it's the Arbol de Artigas, named after Uruguay's national hero, General Jose Gervasio Artigas (1764-1850). Arbol de Artigas is the local nickname for Peltophorum dubium. Its common name is Ibirapita, or some variation of that, all around the region, including Argentina and Paraguay.

Arbol de Artigas in Montevideo Botanical Garden on 26/2/18
Photo by Cory Giacobbe

This regal tree can grow to 25 meters high. Its leaves are bipinnately compound, meaning that each leaf has up to 26 leaflets, and each leaflet has itself up to 26 leaflets.  That's a lot of tiny leaves on one leaf!  This photo shows just one leaf:

One leaf. Montevideo Botanical Garden on 26/2/18
Photo by Cory Giacobbe

Arbol de Artigas can sometimes look like a yellow-flowered version of the more common purple-flowered Jacaranda tree, but the leaves of the Arbol de Artigas are a darker green, and the leaves tend to have a slightly upturned posture, while the lighter green Jacaranda has leaves that hang down a little bit. If you hold out your hand, palm down, and lift your pinky and thumb, that's the Artigas leaf.  If you drop your pinky and thumb a bit, that's the shape of the Jacaranda leaf.

In summer, the canopy of the Arbol del Artigas is covered with panicles of delicate little yellow flowers. The fruit is a samariform legume, meaning that it is a wing-like floating pod. Each pod contains about three seeds.

Arbol de Artigas flowers.
Photo by Cory Giacobbe

How the tree came to be called Arbol de Artigas in Uruguay when it's Ibirapita in the rest of the Southern Cone is part history and part legend.  As the story goes, General Artigas exiled himself to Paraguay in 1820, after helping defeat the British, and then the Spanish, and then finally being defeated by the Portuguese.  The president of Paraguay gave him safety but banished him to a ranch near Asuncion, where he would live out the rest of his days. General Artigas planted an Ibirapita tree in the courtyard of his house, and he would sit in the shade of the tree and drink his Yerba Mate, the traditional herbal drink made of a local holly genus called Ilex paraguariensis. The drink is served in a gourd and sipped with a tin or silver straw.

Seedlings from this original Ibirapita were brought to Artigas, Uruguay in 1915 and one was  planted in the main plaza in honor of General Artigas. Later it was moved to the park in front of the train station (now the bus station). A plaque identifies it as a seedling of the original tree that Artigas sat under in Paraguay.  The ranch in Paraguay is now a school with teachers from Uruguay.

You can spot Ibirapita trees all around Montevideo, but they're not as abundant as you would think, given their beauty and symbolic meaning to all Uruguayans.  It is planted in parks and gardens, and it is used as a street tree.  According to El Pais (10 Aug 2016), only 1% of Montevideo's street trees are native species.  Most are exotics: the Plane Trees including Sycamores, Ash, Willow, Maple and Eucalyptus.  Arborists are testing native trees in Tacuarembo to see which ones will make good street trees, with well-behaved roots, and which tolerate pruning. They're testing and getting good results from medium sized trees such as Guayabos, Arrayan, Pitanga and Araza.  For large avenues and parks, the arborists recommend Ibirapita  and Timbo.

According to El Pais, in Montevideo they started planting Ibirapita about 30 years ago along Avenida del Libertador, Avenida Italia and General Flores, where I took this photo.  They're growing beautifully and are doing very well. When you're out and about in March, keep an eye out for this gorgeous tree.

Ibirapita "Arbol de Artigas" used as street trees on Avenida General Flores, Montevideo, 26/2/18
Photo by Cory Giacobbe

Montevideo Butterfly Garden Design

***This Blog Post is a work in progress. I will update it continuously as I learn more. 

Voy a traducir este artículo al español.

Acknowledgment: The information in this article comes from what I have learned over the last 9 years, studying with Tree Stewards of Arlington and Alexandria and Taller en Verde in Montevideo, meeting and studying the work of Doug Tallamy of University of Delaware, and meeting and studying the work of Gabriela Bentancur in Montevideo. I've also spent countless hours scouring the internet for information on butterfly/plant interactions, and planting butterfly host and nectar plants and observing the results. 

I'm currently living in Uruguay. I'm studying Sustainable Landscape Design with Lucia Ifran. The class is called Taller en Verde, a class about designing gardens with native plants.  While a vast majority of Uruguay's land is devoted to pasture for cattle, cash crops like sorghum and agroforestry for paper pulp, a growing number of landowners are realizing the role native plants play in ecosystem and biodiversity support. The plant nurseries are slow to catch on, as usual, and so they are still carrying the usual Chinese, European, African and Australian exotics that perform so well here. As I learn of nurseries here in Uruguay that supply natives, I'll post them below.

My main goals in garden design are biodiversity support and greenhouse gas mitigation for climate stabilization. Greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are absorbed by plants. The advantage of large woody plants like trees and shrubs is that they take up more carbon dioxide and hold it in the form of wood. The longer the wood remains in the form of wood, the longer the carbon dioxide is kept out of the atmosphere. When it is chipped, burned and decomposed, it releases its carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. When I learn about large, long-life trees that are also host and food plants for wildlife, those are the ones I most promote by planting them myself and encouraging others to plant them as well. 

Whenever I move to a new country, every three or four years, I start learning about the local native plants. Even if I don't have a garden, as was the case for four years in Rome, I learn as much as I can about the native plants, butterflies and birds so I can talk to people about the value of choosing native plants for garden design.

For the past year and a half, I've been studying the plants and butterflies of Uruguay. I have a large garden to experiment with. Currently I'm planting different kinds of passion flower to host the Gulf Fritillaries.  I can't get enough of the local small, tender-leafed local variety, because it's not for sale in the nurseries, so I've planted some of the larger leafed Brazilian passion flower next to it.  The local variety is loaded with eggs and caterpillars, but they are about to eat it all up.  I've only seen one egg on the Brazilian plant, and none of the caterpillars have moved over to it yet. Maybe they will migrate over in desperation in the near future. Update: there are now many eggs and and caterpillars on the Brazilian Maracuja' vines. 

The main purpose of this article is to share what I've learned about gardening for biodiversity and climate in Uruguay, and encourage others who have a ranch, garden, patio, balcony or even just a window box, to plant as many native plants as possible. 

When you plant natives for wildlife, don't forget that if you plant it, they will come.  And they will eat.  The appearance of caterpillars munching on your leaves is a sign that you've chosen the right plant for the right place. If they look like they're going to eat the whole plant, buy more plants.

Try to keep your garden a little messy.  Remember that the insects and birds you're supporting use the leaves, grass and shrubs as food and shelter. Don't mow the grass too often, and let the leaves remain under trees and shrubs.  If you rake and toss the leaves, you'll be throwing away the developing butterfly chrysalises you are nurturing.

Butterflies of Montevideo and their host plants

The Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae

Espejitos on Lantana

Source: User:ComputerHotline/Wikimedia Commons

Locally called "Espejitos", this is one of the most common butterflies in Montevideo.  Their only caterpillar host plants are species in the Passiflora genus. Each regional version of this butterfly tends to prefer its local species of Passiflora, whether it be Mburucuya in Uruguay (Passiflora caerulea), Maracuja' in Brazil or the Maypop purple passionflower in Florida. The adult butterflies will take nectar from Lantana flowers.  Therefore, the best way to attract the Gulf Fritillary and support its life cycle, is to plant a lot of the local Passiflora vine, and several Lantana shrubs nearby. My gardener doesn't want the vine growing on the front fence, so he's constructing bamboo pyramid structures to support the vines away from the fence.
According to Mariposas de Uruguay by Gabriela Bentancur Viglione, the Passiflora is the host plant for several butterfly species in the Nymphalidae family here in Montevideo, such as the Hortensia, with brown and yellow spots, and the Juno and Julia, with similar orange coloring to the Espejitos, but with black stripes instead of spots. Erato is another butterfly in Uruguay dependent on the Passiflora. The Erato is black with two red splotches and two white stripes.
The favorite sources of nectar for Espejitos are Verbena and Lantana. 

Southern Monarch, Danaus erippus and Emperatriz, Danaus eresimus 

Southern Monarch Source: Wikipedia

Both of these are cousins of the North American Monarch, Danaus plexippus, and like the Monarch, their caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweed species, Asclepias sp. The chemicals in the milkweed are what give Monarchs their superpower of being poisonous to birds who ignore the warning of their coloration and try to eat them. In Montevideo, the local milkweed is hard to find, and not usually available for sale. The butterflies have adapted to the alien invasive milkweed from Africa, the Asclepias physocarpa or "Globitos", named for its little green balloon seed pod.  You can plant these in your garden if you find some.  They spread easily from seed once they get started. My teacher says they're terribly invasive in Uruguay and she has some trepidation in recommending them as Monarch host plant. She says if you must plant it, dispose of most of the seed pods and only keep one or two to propagate next year's crop.  But she says the best thing to do is find the local milkweeds, Asclepias mellodora, "Yerba de la Vibora" and Asclepias curassavica, "Flor de Sangre". I haven't found any yet.

Peacock, Junonia genoveva

Peacock Source: Wikipedia

The local name for the Peacock butterfly is "Pavo Real".  It is similar to the Tropical Buckeye and the Mangrove Buckeye. It thrives in uncut grass and the weeds that grow in it.  Try to leave a large area of your lawn uncut. Divide it into two patches. Alternate mowing one patch each month. That way each patch gets cut only once every two months. That gives the butterflies enough time to complete their life cycle of laying eggs, hatching, caterpillar, chrysalis and then emerging as butterfly. Some landscape management guidelines recommend only mowing once, in late fall, using a high blade and leaving the cuttings in place.

To help the Pavo Real, you can plant Ruellia brevifolia and Ruellia tuberosa. Antother plant that is mentioned is Blechum, or Green Shrimp Plant.  It seems to be also one of the Ruellias.  It's hard to find in nurseries, and seems to be a garden weed.  The preferred nectar of the adults is Verbena.

Other butterflies that use Ruellia as their host plant in Uruguay are Mbatara' (dark brown with white spots), and Princesa Roja (dark brown with red center and white spots). Princesa Roja is found in Maldonado. I'm not sure if it can be seen in Montevideo. 

Painted Lady, Vanessa braziliensis

Vanessa braziliensis by Sandro Salomon
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode

The local name for the Painted Lady is Vanesa. Its larval host plants are Marcela, Achyrocline saturoides and Malva Real, Malva parviflora. 

The adult butterfly visits Lantana for nectar.

Bataraza, Ortilia ithra

Mariposa Bataraza
by Flicker Hive Mind User Gustavo Fernando Duran
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/legalcode

The host plant of this brown spotted butterfly is Ruellia, possibly R. coerulea and R. simplex.

The nectar plant preferred by the adult butterflies is Dicliptera tweediana, or Canario Rojo, which should be available in nurseries, but I haven't found it yet. Many photos on the internet show Bataraza nectaring on Lantana.

Diablito, Pyrrhopyge charybdis

Guayabo and other Myrtaceae

Laurel, Ocotea acutifolia

Polydamas, Battus polydamas

Aristolochia triangularis "Isipo Milhombres"

Mariposa de Peñarol, Heraclides Thoas and Mancha Rubi, Heraclides anchisiades

Both of these large black butterflies, each with their yellow stripe or red spot feed on Rue, Tembetari and the citrus trees lemon, orange and mandarin.

Panambi Moroti or Bandera Argentina, Morpho epistrophus

I mention this butterfly because, even though I've never seen it in Montevideo, it's just so big and gorgeous, a light blue floating dream. I saw some by a river in Minas, Uruguay. While the adult butterflies feed on the juices of rotting fruit, the caterpillars feed on three Uruguayan trees.

Coronilla, Scutia buxifolia, is a common small scrub tree in Uruguay. It is known as the best wood for parrilla barbeque because it makes the best embers that stay hot and don't disintegrate.  People cut this tree down wherever they find it because everybody does parrilla asados all the time. I'm told though, that if you plant it, you will have this butterfly.

Other trees used by this butterfly are Inga uruguensis and Lapachillo, Lonchocarpus nitidus.

And Many More...

These are not by any means all of the butterflies that can be seen in Montevideo and surrounding areas. There are those bright yellow ones, those white ones, some swallowtails that probably eat Rue, the tiny blues in the grass that rub their wings, the dirty yellow ones with the little brown spots, the skippers and of course all of the moths. Over the course of the next year, if I identify other butterflies in my garden, and if I'm able to find out what plants they need, I will add them to this article. 

Native Plant Garden Design

Trees

Planting trees is relatively easy if you have the space.  Simply get a list of the trees that support biodiversity, figure out their size and spread, soil and water needs, and plant them in the right place. Water it weekly for the first year or two, until the roots get well established. Voila'!

The great trees of Montevideo:

Guayabo del Pais, Acca selowiana, native small fruit tree, 7 meters

Taruman melifero

Ceibo

Coronilla

Inga'

Lapachillo

Tala

Espinillo

Laurel, Ocotea acutifolia, 15 meters

Lemon

Orange

Mandarin

Tembetari', Fagara rhoifolia, spiny tree, 8 meters

Shrubs

Lantana camara, 1.5 meters high, good nectar for many butterflies

Duranta, Duranta repens, up to 4 meters, good nectar plant, purple flowers, yellow fruit

Cedron de Monte, Aloysia gratissima, 3 m, small white flowers, nectar, sun, moist, sand

Pitanga

Plumerillo

Sen or Rama Negra Senna corymbosa, evergreen shrub, 2.5 meters high

Chilca de Olor, Eupatorium inulifolium, 1-3 meters, moist areas, nectar for many butterflies

Marcela, Achyrocline saturoides, 1 meter high, flowers in March in Souhern Hemisphere

Eugenia and other Myrtaceae

Vines

Passiflora

Aristolochia triangularis "Isipo' Milhombres"

Perennial herbs

Ruellia brevifolia, "Tropical wild petunia" red flower, 0.5 - 1 meter high, part shade, dry

Ruellia tuberosa, 0.5 meters, blue flower, moist shade

Dicliptera tweediana, "Canario Rojo", 0.5 - 1 meter high, or small shrub, red tubular flowers

Ruellia blechum "Wild Hops" or "Green Shrimp Plant". Sun to part shade. 0.6 meters high

Ruellia coerulea, R. simplex, R. tweediana could all be the same local herb, 1 m high

Ruta graveolens, European herb, 0.5 meters, dry, sun
Verbena bonariensis, 1 - 1.5 meters high, purple flowers

Annual herbs

Milkweeds, Asclepias sp.

Cafecillo Senna occidentalis

Malva parvifolia, Native to Africa, Europe and Asia. 0.5 meters, sun,

Grasses

None that I've found so far

Groundcovers

Clovers

Design of the Garden

After I get more familiar with the shapes and sizes of these plants listed above, and as I learn which ones are available in plant nurseries, I'm going to design a low butterfly hedge, located all along the window of my living room.  I'll add the design to this document when I finish it.

In the meantime, I'm going to plant as many of these plants around the garden as I can, as I find them in nurseries and at my teacher's house (she shares!).  

As my teacher always says, "A plantar!". 

Native Plant Nurseries in Uruguay

Pachamama

Pinar Sur, Canelones

Although this nursery claims to only supply food plants, I found some nice butterfly host and nectar plants such as Mburucuya, Malva, Plumerillo, Lapachillo, and Cedron del Monte. I was not able to find the elusive Asclepias. 

Vivero El Ceibo
Carrasco, Montevideo
This lovely suburban garden center has many exotic ornamentals but also you can find some native Uruguayan butterfly hosts and nectar plants in amongst the exotics. While I was there I saw Espejitos and Erato butterflies. Available plants form this list were Verbena, Lantana, Duranta, Ruta, Ruellia, Eugenia and Plumerillo. There were several native trees, such as Anacahuita, Lapachillo, Ceibo, and Palo Borracho.

Vivero Parati
Toledo Chico, Montevideo
Many native trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants are available at this nursery. They will deliver your order after you choose your plants. The native plants I saw were Espinillo, Tembetari, Pata de Vaca, Pitanga, Ibiriapita (Arbol de Artigas), Timbo, Cina Cina, Tala, Anacahuita, Taruman, Tacoma, Ceibo, Araza, Plumerillo Rosado, Duranta, Lantana, Canelon, Verbean bonariensis, Eupatorium macrocepahlum, Rama Negra, Buddleia Amarilla, and several Ruellias. See the catalog on their website for pictures of the available native plants.

Vivero Lavender
Carrasco, Montevideo
Vivero Lavender and Tea Room is a lovely oasis just off the main street of Carrasco, Avenida Arocena, at the corner of Divina Comedia and Mones Roses. The staff is very helpful and the selection of plants is beautiful. The native plants I was able to find from my list were Verbena, Lantana, Duranta, Ruta, Ruellia and Plumerillo. The tree selection included Anacahuita, Ceibo and Palo Borracho.