`Woman’s flower gardens take wing`

Rose Palmer of West Middlesex has found a way to let her imagination take flight. All you have to do is look at her back yard to understand.

Gardens of flowers, full of bright colors and enticing scents, have been carefully planted to attract winged guests — butterflies and hummingbirds.

“I’ve always had an interest in plants,” said Mrs. Palmer. ``My grandparents had a truck farm and, along with the vegetables they sold at the Farrell Curb Market, my grandma grew flowers and sold bouquets as well.”

Her specialized interest began about 10 years ago when she started making paths in her herbal plant beds, seeking to create a unique look in her gardens.

``At that point, my husband and I also quit using pesticides,” Mrs. Palmer said. ``Most of my herbs are culinary and my husband and I wanted to be healthier. I also became more aware of pesticides’ damaging effects on nature,” she added.

Though she always grew flowers that incidentally attracted butterflies, it was only within the past couple of years that her gardening has focused on creating flower beds specifically to draw them to her yard.

``I took the Master Gardener course through the Penn State Extension of Mercer County, which has helped me learn about their habitat,” Mrs. Palmer said.

With the help of her husband, David, who recently retired from Wheatland Tube, she has specifically designed her flower beds around butterflies’ preferred habitat.

``Butterflies like flowers in sunny, open areas. They only fly well in 85-degree weather or above,” said Mrs. Palmer. ``They don’t care for flowers in the shade,” she added. To that purpose, she and her husband plan to cut down some trees in their front yard to make way for more sunshine and more gardens.

Another suggestion Mrs. Palmer has followed is keeping it simple. ``Butterflies don’t care for hybrids of flowers because they don’t have all the nectars of simpler flowers. Just plant what grows in your soil,” Mrs. Palmer advised.

Some of the flowers that butterflies love are goldenrod, yarrow, bee balm, marigolds, milkweed and hollyhocks. ``Bright colors and strong scents attract them,” Mrs. Palmer said. A bright bed of golden marigolds at the end of her driveway and baskets of colorful impatiens send a loud invitation to the insects.

``They like purple, red, yellow, orange and pink, though they don’t care as much for plants in hanging baskets as a rule,” said Mrs. Palmer. ``They don’t like a lot of movement. And they can’t land where there’s a wind.”

Creating a windbreak of taller flowers such as hollyhocks, bee balm or a butterfly bush helps the butterflies to land on smaller plants.

It’s also important to have bushes, trees or a patch of unmowed grass nearby so that the butterflies have a place to rest. ``They need hiding places when the heat of the day is gone or when it’s windy,” Mrs. Palmer said.

Because she works as the community liaison for senior programs at Sharon Regional Health System, her husband has been seeing more of the butterflies than she has. ``He actually does more of the gardening and I do more of the designing,” Mrs. Palmer said of their partnership.

Future plans for their yard, in addition to more sunny flower beds, include some shade gardens for resting butterflies. ``Since most adult butterflies only live 20 to 40 days, we enjoy creating a beautiful place for them,” said Mrs. Palmer.

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Updated August 13, 1998
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