SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - By Barbara Henry

August is a month in which there is not a great deal to do in the garden. One of my favorite things to do is to take a walk around and see what is going on.



Astyanax

 I have noticed that there are far fewer butterflies in my yard this year and I have a butterfly friendly garden. Butterflies love lots and lots of sunshine so I am hoping with the beautiful sunshine we had in July that we should see more butterflies later in the season. Many butterflies are affected by late freezes. Many of them emerge in the early spring just as the trees are starting to leaf out but in a spring where we have a late freeze, the foliage and the caterpillars that were laid on them were frozen. The average life span for an adult butterfly is 20 to 40 days but many varieties have a lifespan less than that so with a late freeze any butterfly that survived the freeze didn’t have enough time to lay their eggs before the new foliage emerged.




Tiger Swallowtail

 Tiger and black swallowtail populations are especially devastated since they emerge very early. I have also read reports that the very bad rains this spring and early summer, along with colder than normal temperatures has probably delayed or upset their life cycle.







Such a fragile groups of insects but so wonderful in our gardens. It really is up to us to promte butterfly friendly gardens with plenty of both host and nectar plants. Also set up butterfly puddles. I have a large shallow tray filled with flat rocks. I keep water in it that is dissolved from the mineral salt blocks that are sold for deer. When ever I have an odd piece of fruit I put it in the tray to let it rot and this is all gourmet food for the butterflies.




Black Swallowtail Catterpiller

 If you have access to horse or cow manure, try putting a scoop in shallow spot in bright sunshine. Keep it almost wet and you will be surprised how many butterflies love this treat.






Early in the year I did see many butterflies, moths and bees. But now even the Rufous humming bird is a scarce sighting. This little bird is the only variety that we see in our area, the Rufous humming bird breeds farther north than any other species of hummingbird in the world.



Rufous Hummingbird

 Did you know it has an excellent memory for location so it can find flowers from day to day and even from year to year? Some birds return a second year to a place where a feeder was the previous year, even though that feeder may not be there now. They love the color red and love to check our large swaths of red flowers.






Aside from just enjoying our gardens and reaping all the harvest, there are few things we need to remember in August.

Change out the water in your bird bath weekly and keep it filled. Make sure you have as little standing water as possible because that becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes. You can buy products to add to your water to kill the larvae and they usually last about 30 days. I have rain barrels in my garden that I use for supplemental watering for my veggie garden and I treat those barrels throughout the year. My pollinator friendly garden does attract more birds and they help keep the mosquito population down. In fact I was bombarded early one evening a month or so ago by birds, I think swallow or purple martins. They were swooping over my yard and the water in the bay feasting on the insects.

Keep up with deadheading your annuals so they don’t turn their thoughts to seed production which is their natural life cycle. Watch your containers; by this time of the year their roots probably fill the containers so you may need to water daily. Containers will also need more in the way of fertilizer especially if you use liquid fertilizer. That’s only available to the plants for a day or two before it leached out by rains or watering. But don’t fertilize your perennials now, we want them to start maturing rather than put on new growth that can be killed by early frosts.

In the veggie garden, remember to pick your crops early.

Cucumbers and squash should be picked at six to eight inches. If you get hit by the squash vine borer, make a longitudinal slit up the stem and dig out the culprit then mound over the slit with soil and your plant will recover.






Our Garden Club reconvenes on September 8 at 1:00 p.m. at the Bradt Building. The topic will be a very timely one – Planning and Planting a Bulb Garden, led by Jean Sweet, a Master Gardener of Fulton and Montgomery Counties.






As always, any questions or comments can be sent to us at P.O. Box 675, Northville, NY.