Reeny's Butterflies, Blooms, & Bees: Finally Mulched my Butterfly Garden!!

How I Got Started

I started Butterfly gardening many years ago. My yard has been a progression over the years, and has made many transformations. Twenty years ago I experienced Hurricane Andrew. My yard and house were destroyed. We decided not to replace the pool screening and open up the backyard and put in some landscaping. That was the official beginning of my love for gardening in South Florida. I added a beautiful water garden years ago, and have been adding host and larvae plants for pollinators, mostly for the butterfly, for as many years as I can remember. I had my yard certified as a Natural Habitat, through the National Wildlife Foundation. To have a natural habitat you need to provide and meet certain requirements: 1. Provide a food source, 2. Provide a water source, 3. Cover, 4. A place to raise young. I try not to use any pesticides in my yard. I vermicompost and recycle as many of my food scraps as possible. If I had more land I would have a huge compost bin to recycle all my yard cuttings. Basically, I try to lessen my carbon footprint on this earth. In my own little world or backyard I try to provide an ecosystem in my water garden, provide birdbaths, birdfeeders, hummingbird nectar sources, feeders, puddling areas, host plants and nectar plants for butterflies and other pollinators. I am hoping to raise everyone’s awareness of the importance of saving our Butterflies, Blooms & Bees. Without them our world and food source will be in trouble. I hope you all enjoy my journey. I am not a Master Gardener, or Master Beekeeper, an Entomologist, or Journalists. I am simply a Backyard Gardener who is trying to lessen her Carbon Footprint of this Earth.

I hope you enjoy my blogs.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Finally Mulched my Butterfly Garden!!

I am so excited because I am finally mulching my garden. Like I said before, this was long overdue. I have had such an issue with weeds but refuse to use any Roundup in the yard. The mulch should control the weeds. I think it looks so beautiful! It is funny how excited and happy just mulching the yard makes me feel. Here are some pictures of my yard. You can see that everything is growing well and the grass is actually starting to come in. I may have to reseed a couple of times, but I am hoping to finally have some grass back this summer.

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Our butterflies, and bees and other pollinators are in crisis. Without our pollinators our food sources and supplies are in jeopardy. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared “man would have only four years of life left.” If we don’t look after our pollinators eventually of food could vanish.

Scientists are speculating as to the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder. I am sure you are all aware that our bees have been in trouble for many years. Many feel there is a link between pesticides and CCD. There are many articles, news reports, and movies to increase our awareness of the dangers to our pollinators. Two movies that are available to view are “Vanishing of the Bees” and “Queen of the Sun”. Both are great movies and really make you stop and think that we as a global society need to protect our pollinators.

I recently became a Backyard Beekeeper. It was the next progression in my quest to help our pollinators. I decided to take a non traditional approach to beekeeping and have Top Bar Hives (TBH). They have been used in third world countries because they are relatively inexpensive to build. They are a horizontal box with bars that the bees draw out their own comb. This has been difficult because most beekeepers use the traditional Langstroth hives. Managing a TBH as a new beekeepers has been quite a learning experience. Most traditional beekeepers raise their bees on artificial foundation, feed sugar water, and use pesticides to control the Varroa mite that is destroying our bees.

Most traditional beekeepers use large cell (LC) foundation which is approximately 5.4mm instead of a more natural size comb of 4.9mm. The larger the comb the more honey they produce. Over the years this is stressing our bees and making them larger and larger and more susceptible to parasites such as the Varroa mite. My bees are raised in my backyard and neighborhood and are able to forage on a diverse plant variety, instead of many bees that are given just one monoculture i.e. pollination of the almond trees in California. I don’t use any pesticides, fungicides, and raise my bees as organically as possible.

How I Got Started

Monday, April 9, 2012

Finally Mulched my Butterfly Garden!!

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