Attracting native insects

I just got back from Oregon, where shade plants that are expensive and finicky in the Northeast grow as wildflowers on the forest floor.

Trillium everywhere

It must be fun to garden in that ecosystem. Arriving home, I was eager to see how my new perennial bed was faring after a dry July week. 

    So far so good. The yarrow flowers (Achillea ‘Coronation Gold’) are still yellow, just starting to turn brown as seeds form. St. John’s wort’s (Hypericum ‘Universe’) sunny blooms have given way to handsome fruits that will persist into winter.

Yarrow flowers have lasted a month

     Balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus) is blooming now. Most of mine are blue, but one mislabeled white-flowered specimen came home with me, and I moved it into the new bed, where it’s settling in happily. 

White balloon flowers

Goldenrod (Solidago odora) and dwarf goat’s beard (Aruncus aethusifolius) are getting ready to flower. The grasses and clumps of iris are expanding, filling in some of the blank spaces.

    Back next to the vegetable bed, plants I chose to benefit native insects are going strong. Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), white-flowered Phlox 'David', and black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) are blooming generously. Dusty pink Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ will open next.

Insectary bed blooms

    As I’d hoped, the flowers are attracting lots of pollinators. Bees are flying from blossom to blossom. We spotted a hummingbird last week, and monarch butterflies have visited on their way through town.

A monarch touches down

    Beneficial insects are gathering too. A dragonfly staked out a perch on top of a tuteur supporting cucumber vines. Presumably a high perch allows insect predators to scan for their prey, like raptors on high dead tree branches. With plants attracting a broad array of native insects, I shouldn’t have to buy beneficial insects such as ladybugs and parasitic wasps. They’ll be drawn to my yard if I offer them enough of the right prey.

    Leaf-eating insects are here too. They’re a little harder to feel good about, because they chew holes in leaves, but they’re important at the base of the food web. I notice that the foliage of the goldenrods I planted in the new bed is getting frayed. That’s good, because this genus supports 115 species of butterflies and moths by providing leaves for their larvae to eat. 

Goldenrod foliage and flowers provide for native insects

With a few goldenrods in the bed, the damage is spread around, and it doesn’t bother me. If I’m lucky, those monarchs may have laid some eggs on the three kinds of milkweed I’m growing so that their caterpillars can eat the leaves.

    Seeing insects and birds in the garden means I’ve got enough flowers blooming and enough of the vegetation they like to eat to make it worthwhile for these creatures to spend time in my yard. That was my hope when I chose the plants for the new bed and when I designed the insectary bed next to the vegetable growing area. I’ve come to believe that to be sustainable, a garden has to provide food and habitat for native insects.

Native plants for native insects