The Butterfly Landing

06/13/2026

Let's Talk About Plants 🦋🐝🐛 Fanick's Phlox what a great plant, so showy! The phlox in the front flower bed at The Butterfly Landing is blooming, the ones in the garden are in bud but haven't quite started blooming yet. I would venture to say that if you appreciate garden phlox, this is the best variety for our area that you will find. Discovered growing in San Antonio by horticulturist Greg Grant, it was named after the late San Antonio nurseryman John Fanick. This hardy garden phlox has earned its Texas Superstar® title and deserves all that and more. It is drought tolerant, sun tolerant, cold tolerant, and black thumb tolerant. It does take a few years for it to get well established but once it start gaining momentum the plant spreads fast and the blooms get larger and blooms for a longer period of time. It does like regular fertilizer and no doubt will help you get more blooms. It has a fairly long bloom season and Oh Yes, It attracts butterflies. The larger swallowtails seem to go after it the most. It can reach 2-3' tall and each season the spread will increase. It is a true perennial dying back to the ground after the first frost, spreading by root during the winter months and coming back to life with exuberance when the weather starts getting warm. If you clip the spent blooms off during the blooming season it will have a neater appearance and I think it helps keep it blooming longer. Be sure to cut the dead off after it freezes. I cut it back to soil level before it regrows the next spring. Take a look at these pictures just in case I haven't convinced you that you want one. You will find some at Rainbow Gardens off and on through out the summer. It is much easier to start this plant from a #1 size pot than smaller sizes.

06/13/2026

🎤📣We have starter plants of the Giant milkweed tree going up to Rainbow Gardens Bandera tomorrow, hopefully they will be ready for sale by around noon.
Save The Pollinators Save The World🐛🦋🐝🦇

06/11/2026

Our Fringed twinevine has been spurred into bloom by the reascent rains and is looking great right now. Twinevines are one of the milkweed plants the beautiful Queen butterfly hosts on.

06/10/2026

06/08/2026

Checkered white and American basketflower showing off in our habitat at The Butterfly Landing a few days ago.
Here is more info if you are interested.
https://www.npsot.org/posts/native-plant/centaurea-americana

06/07/2026

Great info!

These markings on the wings help to differentiate the male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail from its female counterpart.

06/06/2026

Let's Talk About Plants🦋🐝🐛Native Butterfly Pea or Atlantic Pigeonwings, Clitoria mariana. This is an interesting native version of the Blue Butterfly Pea many of us love. I have been growing it for about 3 or 4 years now and have enjoyed watching this delicately beautiful plant. The blooms on this are usually single and can vary in color from pink to lavender to light blue. The leaves look very similar to our much loved Butterfly Pea only just a little bit smaller and a lighter shade, more pale in color and has cute dark freckles in the throat. From watching the plants so far it likes to be much dryer than it's deep blue cousin. It also seems to take a little more sun and like many native plants it is going to need good drainage. It is growing much slower than the larger double blue Butterfly Pea but should stay much smaller so that makes sense. I have no doubt that it will be very well behaved and not get pushy in it's space nor crawl all over everything like some of the milkweed vines do. This should be a good alternative for the die hard Native plant lover that would like to grow a butterfly pea for a host plant as well as for the showy flowers. We love having them here at The Butterfly Landing and look forward to seeing some beautiful Long-tailed skippers, White-striped Longtails, and Silver-spotted skippers hosting on them. We have had a good number of all of all of these in the past couple of years. These interesting butterflies seek out only plants that are legumes so it is highly likely we will see them on some of our Pea vines again this year. Check out the picture of the Long-tailed skipper. I love the turquoise and charcoal coloring with the white dots, it is very handsome!
The seeds are small and roundish very much like a radish seed but they are very sticky so if you are out hiking and end up with some small round seeds stuck to your socks or shoes you might want to plant them😁We have a few for sale this season and we are hoping for a good seed crop again this fall for future sales. I can't wait to grow more of these! Save The Pollinators Save The World!🐛🦋🦇🐞🐝

06/05/2026

🎤📣We have Native butterfly pea also called Atlantic pigeonwings, Butterfly pea, Mexican sunflower, and Incense passion vine going up to Rainbow Gardens Bandera Saturday. Save The Pollinators Save The World🦋🐝🦇

06/05/2026

Here is one of the hand outs I pass out at the Native Pollinator class, I thought you might be interested in it. Please feel free to pass along to teachers and those looking to establish a habitat. This is a great resource for anyone looking for a Native host plant list. These are all L 48 US native plants. Most are Texas native but not all and they all have value for pollinator gardens.🦋🐝🐛🦇

06/04/2026

We are seeing Sleepy orange butterflies and caterpillars in the Habitats. There are a few caterpillars at Rainbow Gardens Bandera in the shade gardens on the senna there if anyone is interested in taking a look. You have to be really good at spotting caterpillars to see them they go almost invisible!🐛🎤