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Sometimes I hear people saying that there are not as many butterflies and bees anymore. This appears to be very true. Lately there has been a lot of study and speculation as to why the bee population has declined. Bees are very important in agriculture and also in our home gardens to pollinate the plants that produce seeds, fruits and vegetables.

We can all do our part to encourage bees and butterflies in our home gardens and yards by not using herbicides and pesticides that may harm them and by using plants that attract them and benefit them. As more and more of our land becomes urbanized, the plants that support the fragile and ethereal beauty of butterflies are eliminated as well. It is difficult to imagine a summer without butterflies fluttering around. Who doesn't like butterflies? My oldest daughter even has a large butterfly tattooed on her back — and she also grows "host plants" and butterfly and bee attracting plants in the garden around her home.

One way to help the butterfly population expand is by using host plants for the larva of butterflies in our gardens.

Using plants that attract butterflies is also quite important, but if the babies (caterpillars) don't have places to eat, the population declines. It is easy to include some host plants in and around your garden. The hungry babies may eat some or all of the plant — but that is what why they are there. Many of us feed birds — why not feed baby butterflies as well? Most butterfly larvae can only eat specific kinds of plants — and if they are not available, they cannot survive.

I planted a $2 six-pack of small dill plants a couple of months ago early in the season in front of a new raised tomato bed made of cinder blocks.

The other day I was surprised and happy to find eight larvae (caterpillars) of the black swallowtail butterfly happily munching away on my dill plants. I also found one that had eaten most of a parsley plant just prior to this. I planted several parsley plants so I don't mind sharing.

Black swallowtails are gorgeous butterflies — so now at least eight of them found a good food source, as they have remained there for several days.

Milkweeds are another easy to grow source of food for the beautiful orange and black monarch butterflies — the butterflies that migrate to Mexico every year. You do not have to grow the "weed" milkweed, although you can. If you are lucky enough to have lots of land, maybe you can let part of it go wild, therefore supporting lots of native plants.

There are ornamental milkweeds that can fit into any garden that caterpillars are happy to eat — look for plants in the asclepias (milkweed) family. I have been growing an asclepias tuberosa (orange milkweed) for a number of years and the plant is very pretty with clusters of bright orange flowers, is a native perennial, blooms all summer long, and is disease free. It both attracts adult butterflies with its nectar and is a host plant for the larva of the queen butterfly and the monarch.

Another wonderful plant in the milkweed family is asclepias curassavica or bloodroot. This 3 foot tall and wonderful annual plant has loads of brilliant reddish orange and yellow flowers for months.

One more asclepias I grow is the annual asclepias physocarpa or balloon plant. It reaches 6 feet and in late August/early September has lots of odd ball-shaped balloon-like seed pods — monarch caterpillars love this plant as well.

Here is a list of some host plants to grow in our area:

Fennel, marigold, dill, parsley, asclepias, passionflower, pawpaw (a small tree that bears edible fruit), nasturtium, pansy, viola, spice bush, clover and vetch.

Clarification

Last week, a photo caption with a lily was inaccurate — although Calla lilies can't survive an Ohio winter without help, most lilies can survive our winters just fine — they just don't like to be soggy. For calla lilies, be sure to have their tubers dug and stored in a box indoors for the winter.

Ildiko Sherman is a local gardener and columnist. Contact her with gardening questions at Ildiko5@earthlink.net or write c/o The Journal, 52 S. Broad St., Middletown, OH 45044.