SAVE WATER, BUTTERFLIES
SAWS coupons help make garden for needed wildlife
Have you been thinking about creating a hummingbird and butterfly garden in your landscape? If you are a SAWS customer, it would be relatively easy to produce a 200square-foot garden and have most of the costs covered by their water conservation coupon program.
Here’s how you could start. Identify a 200-square-foot patch of lawn in full sun that is now watered with sprinkler irrigation and make a planting plan for the garden. It could be based on an actual garden like the certified butterfly garden at Milberger’s Nursery or be an adaption of a plan from a resource book such as in Geyata Ajilvsgi’s “Butterfly Gardening for the South.”
The Milberger’s garden is approximately 200 square feet. Geyata’s plan for the Hill Country Garden starts out larger than that, but it would be easy to adjust. There are lots of other garden plans available on the internet.
The only thing magic about the 200 square feet is that it is the amount of lawn that you must convert to a more water-efficient situation to receive the $100 coupon for plants from participating nurseries. Each spring and fall, SAWS residential customers can apply for up to four WaterSaver coupons to replace part of a thirsty lawn with lush, droughttolerant garden beds and/or permeable patios. There is a lifetime limit of eight coupons per service account.
Check the specifications of the coupon program at gardenstylesanantonio.com.
The lawn grass must be replaced by at least 15 plants from a list of 100 choices offered. Many of the plants are butterfly and hummingbird nectar sources and/or butterfly egg-laying site species. Of course, the list includes all the native milkweeds and the Mexican milkweed.
Milkweeds are the only plant genus on which monarchs and their cousins the queen butterflies will lay their eggs. Texas Gold esperanza is the egg-laying site for the gray hairstreak and a nectar source for hummingbirds, and it is on the list.
Other desirable butterfly and hummingbird plants on the list include flame acanthus, all the salvias and lantanas, pride of Barbados, shrimp plant, plumbago, Mexican honeysuckle, frogfruit, Mexican olive, Turks cap, mint marigold, firebush and the mistflowers.
While these are not on the 100-plant list, there is nothing in the program that says you couldn’t also plant a passion vine, dill and a citrus tree to provide egg-laying sites for even more butterfly species.
After picking the plants, remove the 200 square feet of grass. You can dig up the lawn grass, but it is also acceptable to kill it with a contact herbicide for grass and then plant the new garden right into the killed sod. In addition to replacing the lawn grass, you will have to disconnect the sprinkler irrigation in the coupon area.
To participate in the 2019 coupon program, SAWS customers must apply to gardenstylesanantonio.com by Oct. 15. If you register, you will receive an email describing the photos of your landscape needed to be submitted for the program monitoring. You will have until Nov 17 to purchase the plants. A special $50 mulch bonus is also available for participants who apply for it by Dec. 15.
In addition to Milberger’s, Fanicks, both Rainbow Gardens and the Garden Center Nurseries are participating in the SAWS coupon program.
This week in the garden
Prepare the soil for your winter vegetable garden by incorporating 10 cups of slow-release lawn fertilizer and 2 inches of compost into each 100 square feet of garden bed. It also works best if you moisten the soil before planting the seeds and transplants. Consider broccoli, carrots, beets, kale, lettuce, cauliflower, radishes, Brussels sprouts, chard, turnips and cabbage.
If the lawn has received irrigation or rain and is green, fertilize with a ”winterizer” fertilizer. The fall fertilization contributes to winter hardiness and a fast spring green-up.
Spread the seed for wildflowers now. The seed has to be able to reach bare soil in full sun to be successful. The wildflower mixes designated for Texas work, or you can plant single selections like bluebonnets, coreopsis, poppies, larkspur and blue curl. Zinnias will continue blooming until Thanksgiving, but you can also plant now the cool-weather annuals such as snapdragons, stocks, alyssum, dianthus and calendula. Wait another month before you plant pansies and cyclamen.