common_nature | Photos: Lake Charleston Butterfly Gardens

Today we visited the butterfly gardens at Lake Charleston.

Part of the butterfly garden wraps around the north edge of the parking lot. Behind that, the ground slopes up toward the upland forest.

Part of the butterfly garden wraps around the north edge of the parking lot. Behind that, the ground slopes up toward the upland forest.

The tall flowers toward the back are yellow coneflower aka gray-headed coneflower. They have flower buds but no petals yet. These buds don't actually "open" but instead the petals will grow out from the base of the heads. I have some of these in the wildflower garden and prairie garden, but I'm not sure mine have buds yet.

Orange butterflyweed grows all over these gardens. It is among the more spectacular types of milkweed, good for pollinators in general and a larval host plant for monarch butterflies. Some cultivars are yellow instead of orange. However, be aware that pollinators prefer the wild type more than cultivars. (This is probably because plant breeding companies select for human-favored traits like prettier flowers. You could just as well select for flowers that produce more nectar, pollen, etc. just by saving seed from the ones that have the most pollinators on them.) I grow both, but if you only have room for one and you're planting for pollinators, use the native orange kind.

Here is a closeup of the orange butterflyweed flowers. I think this is my favorite picture. It would make a great art print to set the palette of a room, like a living room. You could get a cream, a brown, light medium and dark greens, a yellow, light and dark orange, hot pink, and burgundy.

This looks like narrowleaf mountain mint. I have some in my wildflower garden, where it is enormously popular with pollinators. There are multiple types of wild mountain mint. I've been trying to grow more, since I let my pollinators vote with their wings, but so far this is the one that has stuck around.

These tall yellow flowers bloomed in several places. I suspect they are some sort of coreopsis. I have a similar one blooming in the prairie garden, plus a deep red 'Hot Paprika' by the barrel garden. This is another plant with lots of species and cultivars.

Here is a closeup of the yellow flowers.

This penstemon has dark red leaves, almost black, and pinkish-white flowers. it resembles the 'Husker Red' that I have in my wildflower garden, but there are multiple cultivars with this kind of coloring. Some others have darker pink or purple flowers.

Penstemon flowers grow on spikes. The flowers are tubular and stick out to the sides or slightly downward.

Some other penstemons had white flowers and ordinary green leaves.

This round butterfly garden stands at the end of the road that goes along the edge of the parking lot, creating a circle that drivers can loop around.

The round garden holds a variety of flowers.

Here is a closeup of the butterfly garden sign. More of these are appearing in places around town, which is cool. The big wildflower meadow by the library has purple echinacea blooming already. I don't think mine even had buds yet.

These small yellow flowers might be rue., which is a larval host plant for some swallowtail butterflies.

Here is a closeup of the small yellow flowers.

This bumblebee was visiting the orange butterflyweed. I saw a bunch of bumblebees out foraging.

This is sedum, although it won't bloom until much later in summer. It is likely the same 'Autumn Joy' that I have in the septic garden and under the maple tree, hugely popular with pollinators especially the parasitoid wasps, such as my favorite blue-winged wasps.

More narrowleaf mountain mint grows in the round butterfly garden.

Here is a closeup of the narrowleaf mountain mint flowers.

This is likely some sort of fleabane, perhaps a daisy fleabane. It's what is called a "weedy wildflower." In addition to their basic job as "bandage plants" to slap roots on bare disturbed soil as fast as possible, many of these are valuable wildlife plants. You can make a pretty good wildflower meadow dirt cheap by flinging down seeds for fleabane, milkweeds, goldenrods, asters, and so on.

This is the southern part of Lake Charleston where it wraps around the parking lot, heading toward the spillway a little farther west.

As we were leaving, we saw a red-headed woodpecker. :D They used to be common here, but we hadn't seen any for years, and then this year a pair visited my yard in spring.

This was actually the second part of our excursion today. We started by driving through Fox Ridge. I definitely saw milkweed (probably common milkweed), white yarrow, and elderberry. I'm pretty sure of penstemons, yellow coreopsis, some sort of white daisy (possibly ox-eye daisy), and fleabane. There were some small yellow flowers that might have been clover, and tall purple ones that I didn't recognize at all.

Photos: Lake Charleston Butterfly Gardens

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