A Zebra Longwing butterfly nectars on bright pink verbena flowers at the Museum of Natural History exhibit. (Courtesy photo) The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s (SBMNH) annual summer exhibit ...
Swallowtails were early at The Garden Guy’s house this year. Thank goodness I had Superbena verbenas in full bloom. It is as if they had been given the task of announcing the arrival of spring and the ...
Most gardeners trust lavender and coneflowers to attract bees, but I've found that pollinators in my garden are making a beeline for one unexpected bloom: verbena. The low-maintenance perennial, ...
In the poem “Blue-Butterfly Day,” Robert Frost describes butterflies as “…flowers that fly and all but sing.” If you want to attract as many of those flying flowers to your home as you can, you’ll ...
I've received a lot of questions from readers lately about a lack of pollinators in their gardens. Folks not only miss seeing them, but vegetable production is down. Usually my advice is to plant as ...
When shopping for flowers in springtime, it is easy to get a little carried away. So many blooms to choose from, and they are all so pretty! It can be hard to pick a favorite, but plants and flowers ...
I was out recently doing butterfly monitoring at Kankakee Sands out in our prairie that is grazed by cattle, and I wanted to share an observation. We use the cattle grazing as a disturbance tool that ...
Sand verbena, Abronia fragrans, has a moth pollination syndrome, or a suite of floral characters modified by natural selection driven by moth pollination. Its flowers are open all night but closed all ...
As I was watching a fresh newborn Gulf Fritillary swooping down to feed on Superbena Royale Plum Wine verbenas, I started thinking I wish everyone knew about these flowers grown by our grandparents.