Eva D’Amico has a passion for native plants, gardening and pollinators.
By creating colourful but low-maintenance butterfly gardens using plants indigenous to Lambton County, people can attract a variety of pollinators to their gardens, the Wyoming woman says.
Furthermore, those pollinators will strengthen the ecosystem, protect the region from non-native insects and plants, and ultimately sustain the planet’s delicate circle of life.
Formerly a resident of the Newmarket, area, D’Amico has lived in Lambton County for about 10 years. She is an early childhood educator at Gregory Hogan Catholic School, and has been creating butterfly gardens for three decades. She shared some of the lessons she’s learned at the Feb. 12 Central Forum presentation.
There are seven steps to attracting butterflies and other pollinators to your garden, D’Amico said. They include providing nectar, water and supplementary food such as manure and rotten fruit.
For those seeking to go a step further, building shelter for the pollinators, growing host plants (a plant where butterflies can lay eggs and from where caterpillars can feed), avoiding the use of chemicals and planting native perennials in succession for a season-long bloom, will help maximize the number of native insects, butterflies, moths and birds coming to the garden.
“If you think about nectar, start with flowers,” D’Amico said, noting flowers such as aster, goldenrod, ironweed, coneflowers and milkweeds are among the top choices.
“Then bring in water, maybe a birdbath for instance. Shelter is important and if you really want to get serious, you can bring in some host plants.”
“The North American Butterfly Association will certify your garden if you have three host plants and three nectars. And if you have milkweed, you can be certified a monarch garden,” she added.
Different species of butterflies have single host plants or host families, D’Amico said, so when you’re deciding what butterflies you’d like to attract to your garden, consider what host plants to place there. Monarch butterflies, the species D’Amico referred to as the poster child of butterflies, gravitate towards milkweed, while Black Swallowtails prefer the parsley family while Painted Lady butterflies prefer thistles.
“Thistles get a bad rap,” she said. “Mostly because of the non-native Scotch, Bull and Canadian thistle varieties. But Hill’s Thistle and Nodding Thistle are native species and attract butterflies, goldfinches and hummingbirds.”
Some butterflies are attracted to plants on Ontario’s noxious weed list, D’Amico said, including species such as giant hogweed (which can be found on the Howard Watson Trail, she said) and poison hemlock.
D’Amico suggested you stay away from such dangerous plants.
“I wouldn’t suggest growing things on the noxious weed list,” she added. “You don’t want to ruffle any feathers, and there still are a lot of other options available.”
Trees can also attract pollinators, D’Amico said. Butterflies such as Mourning Cloaks, White Admirals, Red Spotted Purple, Tiger Swallowtails, Viceroys and Painted Ladys are particularly attracted to willow, elm, and birch, cherry or poplar trees.
Luna moths flock to birch and walnut trees, while Cecropia moths come to birch, lilac, willow, ashes, cherries and apple trees, while Polyphemus moths are attracted to oak, birch, ashes, hickory or maple.
While most butterflies can survive nectaring on non-native species, a garden with mostly native species plants will attract more pollinators, D’Amico said, because the nectar sipping apparatus of pollinators are matched with the native plants they have co-evolved with.
And several species of butterflies, she said, don’t feed on nectar but on tree sap, rotten fruit, carrion and manure. These are the Angle wing butterflies, which include the Question Mark, Comma, Mourning Cloak and the Tawny Emperor species.
Following her presentation, D’Amico said it’s of vital importance that people use native plants in their gardens to support pollinators.
“We need pollinators to pollinate our food crops. And plant life is the basis of all life on Earth, so if we lose the pollinators we’re not far behind,” she said. “I think Albert Einstein once said that a few years after we lose our last pollinators, we’ll be dead because we won’t have food.”
Once people understand how much butterfly gardens help pollinators and the local eco-system, they’re generally on board for life, she said.
“I think when you talk about colour and what you can bring to your garden, that’s when people start to take notice,” she said. “And when you start talking about species at risk, people realize that (certain plants) aren’t common in the wild so let’s start propagating native plants here.”
After 30 years of learning about native plants and pollinators, D’Amico said she still has the same curiosity about the subject as when she started. She still maintains a six-foot by 12-foot garden outside of her townhouse which she said she finds endlessly fascinating and rather comforting.
“I think the most rewarding part of this is coming home every day and seeing something new in the garden,” D’Amico said. “Life changes and my life has changed a lot in the last 10 years, but my garden has always been the same. I can always go and buy a plant and it’s been a constant.”
“Teaching people about it is fun, too,” the long-time educator added. “I love talking to people – adults, children – about (the subject), and seeing the animals, butterflies and insects that come with building a garden.”
For those interested in pursuing the subject further, D’Amico suggested they either join a local naturalist group such as Lambton Wildlife Inc. or the Sydenham Field Naturalists, or pick up a book by world-renowned naturalist Doug Tallamay or Toronto writer Lorraine Johnson.
For those interested in finding native plants, she recommended visiting Aamjiwnaang’s Maajiigin Gumig Greenhouse or DeGroot’s Nurseries.
D’Amico’s seven steps in attracting butterflies to your garden
- Provide nectar
- Provide water
- Supplementary foods – e.g. manure, rotten fruit
- Host plants
- Avoid chemicals – i.e. Pesticides
- Use native perennials plants in succession for season-long bloom