Plants for Butterflies and Other Pollinators

Showing 121–128 of 220 results

  • Lunaria annua Money plant, Honesty, Silver dollar Biennial Reseeds Z 5-10

    Mauve phlox-like blooms spring to early summer turn into silvery, translucent seedpods.

    $9.95/POT

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    Mauve phlox-like blooms spring to early summer turn into silvery, translucent seedpods.

    LIMITED QUANTITIES AVAILABLE, LIMIT OF 1 PER CUSTOMER PLEASE.

     

    Size: 1'-3' x 1’
    Care: Full sun to part shade.
    Native: mountains of Italy
    Wildlife Value: attracts bees and butterflies

    Old-fashioned heirloom. Silver dollars are perfect for dried bouquets! Popular in winter flower arrangements since colonial times. Introduced to England from Germany in the late 1500’s and carried to America by the Puritans as a reminder of home.  Grown at America’s 1st botanic garden, Elgin Botanic Garden 1811.

    **LISTED AS OUT OF STOCK BECAUSE WE DO NOT SHIP THIS ITEM.  IT IS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AT OUR RETAIL LOCATION.

  • Lupinus perennis Sun-dial lupin, Old maid’s bonnet, wild pea Z. 4-9

    Many flowered blue, pea flowered raceme May-June

    $10.25/BAREROOT

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    Many flowered blue, pea flowered raceme May-June

    Size: 1-2' x 12"
    Care: full sun in well drained soil. A legume, so it enriches the soil by adding nitrogen.
    Native: Maine to FL, Ontario to MN to Louisiana, Wisconsin native.
    Wildlife Value: Attracts both hummingbirds and butterflies. The only food for larvae of endangered species, Karner Blue butterfly.

    Lupinus is Latin from Lupus meaning “wolf.”  Likely sent from its native Virginia to England by Tradescant the Younger in 1637. Certainly collected by Frenchman Michaux, who scoured eastern North American over 11 years in late 1700’s.  Grown by Jefferson.  Grown at America’s 1st botanic garden, Elgin Botanic Garden 1811.The Cherokee used this to stop bleeding.  The Menominee fattened their horses with this Lupin and made them spirited.  They rubbed the plant on themselves to give power to control the horses.

  • Malva alcea ‘fastiagata’    Hollyhock mallow   Z 5-9

    Bright rose mallows from early to late summer.  Cut back by half in late July for rebloom.

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    Bright rose mallows from early to late summer.  Cut back by half in late July for rebloom.

    Size: 3’ x 18” 
    Care: Sun well-drained soil, drought tolerant
    Native: Italy

    Malvas have been cultivated for food or flower since 6000 B.C.  In 1629 Parkinson described the uses for the Hollyhock mallow: “By reason of their viscous or slimie quality doe helpe to make the body soluble… helpe also to ease the paines of the stone and gravell, causing them to be the more easily voided: being outwardly applied, they mollisie hard tumors.”

  • Monarda didyma ‘Cambridge Scarlet’ Beebalm Z 4-9

    Whorls of scarlet tubes & bracts looking like fireworks, in summer

    $12.75/bareroot

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    Whorls of scarlet tubes & bracts looking like fireworks, in summer

    Size: 3-4' x spreading
    Care: sun to part shade in well-drained soil.
    Native: N. E. America
    Wildlife Value: Checkered white, Fritillary and Melissa blue butterflies relish Beebalm’s nectar.

    Cherokee used the species medicinally, to cure colic, flatulence, nosebleed, measles, flu, hysteria and to induce restful sleep.  Monarda was named in honor of Nicholas Monardes (1493-1588), a Spanish botanist who wrote about plants of the New World. Discovered by John Bartram (1699-1777) being used by colonists in Oswego N.Y. to make tea.  Oswego Indians taught the colonists how to make tea from the dried leaves.  Bartram sent this Beebalm to Peter Collinson in England in whose garden it grew in 1744.  By 1757 its English availability was “nearly universal” among gardeners.   During the American Revolution used as a substitute for tea. Grown at America’s 1st botanic garden, Elgin Botanic Garden 1811.This cultivar ‘Cambridge Scarlet’ recommended by Gertrude Jekyll in 1908.

  • Monarda fistulosa Wild bergamont Z 3-9

    Whorls of hooded lavender tubes in July - August

    $12.75/bareroot

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    Whorls of hooded lavender tubes in July – August

    Size: 3-4' x 2' spreading
    Care: Sun to part shade any soil.
    Native: central U.S., Wisconsin native
    Wildlife Value: Checkered white, Tiger swallowtail, Giant swallowtail and Melissa blue butterflies relish Wild bergamot’s nectar. Supports over 70 bee species including Rusty patched Bumble Bee.

    Used medicinally by many Native tribes- Blackfoot, Cherokee, Chippewa, Choctaw, Crow, Dakota and Flathead. Cherokee: to cure colic, flatulence, nosebleed, measles, flu, hysteria and to induce restful sleep Blackfoot called it “Single-young-Man.”  Teton Dakotas boiled the leaves and flowers for medicine to cure abdominal pain. Ho-Chunk boiled the leaves to make a medicine for pimples.  Choctaws cured chest pain in children. The Flathead cured colds and sore teeth with Wild Bergamot. HoChunk inhaled fumes in a sweat bath to cure colds. Oneidas made a tea. For the Sioux it was nourishment and a panacea:  tea, stomachache, fever, indigestion, sore throats, fainting, whooping cough, wounds, sore eyes, ulcers, and snakebites. First documented by French explorers before 1635.  Plant exported to Europe by Tradescant the Younger in 1637.  Grown by Washington at Mount Vernon.  Today it is a flavor in Earl Grey tea.

  • Nepeta nervosa Catmint Z 4-9

    Chubby spikes of many clear blue-purple flowers blooming June-September. Deadhead to rebloom

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    Chubby spikes of many clear blue-purple flowers blooming June-September. Deadhead to rebloom

    Size: 16-20” x 18-24”
    Care: sun in moist to moist well-drained soil
    Native: China
    Wildlife Value: deer & rabbit resistant, attracts bees & butterflies

    Nepetas may have been named after Nepete, an old Etrusrian city. Nervosa means with conspicuous veins. Collected before 1833.

  • Nepeta racemosa syn. N. mussinii Catmint Z 4-8

    Lavender blue from May through September, cut back for rebloom

    $12.75/bareroot

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    Lavender blue from May through September, cut back for rebloom

    Size: 18" x 18"
    Care: Full sun in well-drained soil
    Native: Caucasus
    Wildlife Value: attracts butterflies and bees
    Awards: Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit.

    Nepetas may have been named after Nepete, an old Etrusrian city. Mussinii named for the plant’s discoverer, Russian Count Apollos Apollosovitch Mussin-Pushkin.  In gardens before 1810 and a favorite Victorian bedding plant by the late 1800’s.  Catmints contain various amounts of an essential oil  (nepetalactone) both a cat stimulant and a mosquito repellant.

  • Nepeta subsessilis Japanese catmint Z 4-8

    Showy bluish-purple spikes of bell-shaped flowers forming short spikes, June-September

    $12.75/bareroot

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    Showy bluish-purple spikes of bell-shaped flowers forming short spikes, June-September

     

    Size: 18-24” x 18-24” 
    Care: sun to part shade in moist to moist well-drained soil
    Native: Japan
    Wildlife Value: deer & rabbit resistant, attracts butterflies

    Subsessilis means nearly without stalks.  Catmints contain various amounts of an essential oil (nepetalactone) both a cat stimulant and a mosquito repellant. From Nambu Japan where botanists called it Miso-gawa- sô.  Von Siebold, German botanist and physician, who worked in Japan from 1823 to1830, saw it.   Named in Bull. Acad. Imp. Sci. Saint-Pétersburg, sér. 3, 20: 469. (1875) by Russian botanist Karl Maximowicz.

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