Happy Anniversary

[Anne Kilmer]

This is a message I posted to the leps list, January 14, 2001.
Yes, folks, we're a year old.


 >Let's fix this thing, all of us ... we'll just
 > butterfly garden it, the way we did the Atala.
 > This is a "Fools Rush In" project, but I am emboldened by Chris Durden's
 > statement that the Miami Blue is a small population here, but there are
 > a lot of them on the islands. So, maybe we're in time, or maybe not, but
 > the planet is not necessarily poorer. And it's good exercise.
 > I'm thinking that there are a lot of gardeners, a lot of them actually
 > butterfly gardeners, more or less, down Miami way and out onto the Keys.
 > I know some Master Gardeners, some garden club people, folks who could
 > give us a hand here. But we need to know what we're doing. That's where
 > you come in. ;-)
 >
 > Here's my plan. [I am putting the parts I don't know in brackets ... so
 > as not to look like an idiot, I'd like to fill some of this in before I
 > float it in front of the gang.]
 > We get people (school kids, native nurseries, the community college,
 > butterfly gardeners) to grow a lot of balloon vine in gallon pots. [Do
 > they need to do seedlings, or cuttings? Should they take cuttings now? I
 > assume this vine grows like mad in the ground, and is recalcitrant in
 > pots, like most picky natives ... but maybe it's easy to propagate.
 > I can find this out, if you don't happen to know offhand.]
 > Butterfly World will presumably help with this part.
 > Meanwhile, we figure out how to grow Balloon Vine in a well-groomed
 > garden, with pleasure to all and profit to its butterflies.
 > If we let people prune back the brown parts in winter, and if they then
 > hung up the seed pods prettily someplace where they'd like the seeds to
 > plant themselves (maybe over some seed flats in the back yard) would the
 > butterflies be just as happy as if they'd been left on the vine?
 > I looked up the Miami Blue ... heck, I'm ignorant.
 >
 > Endangered Species
 > <http://images.about.com/all/bullets/dot_clea.gif>
 > Proposed Listed Species.
 >
 > Miami blue butterfly (Florida): 90-day Finding
 >
 > The Miami blue is a small butterfly with bright blue forewings on both
 > sexes, a wide dark outer border on the forewing in females, and an
 > orange-capped eyespot on the hindwing. This subspecies once occurred
 > from mainland peninsular Florida, as far north as Hillsborough and
 > Volusia counties, southward to south Florida and the Keys, including the
 > Dry Tortugas.
 >
 > gosh. We can grow the host plant, therefore, in just about all of
 > Florida, but would do best to focus on Miami-southward, just for 
starters.
 > The bug is at the moment in reproductive diapause; I looked it up. Now
 > is a good time to rush around (but not where the last of the population
 > is; from that, we stay the hell away, for the moment, most of us. )
 >
 > Now then, bearing with us truckloads of these plants, which I want
 > large, tomorrow, we converge upon ... ah, this is the best part ... the
 > staging site, where the un-butterflied plants are stored until they are
 > adopted (free? At a small fee?)
 > This (so far imaginary) site is, by an amazing coincidence, quite near
 > to the actual place where the remnant butterfly population hangs out. So
 > (I reckon) the butterflies find the host plants and lay eggs upon them
 > and there we are. An instant butterfly farm.
 >
 > These plants, butterflies and all, are available to whoever wants them,
 > PROVIDED they sign adoption papers (oh how cute) which will keep them in
 > touch with the professor at the local university whose blue-eyed baby
 > this will have to be. So he/she will absolutely know why all of a sudden
 > there are Miami Blues on the Mounts Botanical Garden butterfly count,
 > confirmed by Bob Beiriger and Paul Pfenninger (who have been taking
 > their little temperatures every hour on the hour, and keeping their vine
 > presentable, too.)
 > The adopter must also present evidence of a well-established balloon
 > vine already at the proposed planting site, and ... ?
 > [This is a dream, this is only a dream ... but, why shouldn't it work?]
 > Before we get this show on the road, we need to know exactly how to
 > groom this vine so that it will look good and the butterflies will do
 > well. I would be inclined to try growing it with other vines, and I'm
 > thinking it  might look better if one clipped the drying seed pods and
 > hung them to dry ... but I've never met the vine, so I don't know.
 >
 > I think we can make this happen. The Master Gardeners would be thrilled
 > and excited to help. There are lots of school butterfly gardens that
 > would pitch in. That means thousands of eyes out there, watching their
 > little vines, twitching their leaves about ...
 > And we post our results on our very own web page, which will be hosted
 > by the Mounts, maybe ... unless we have a better idea.
 >
 > I would suggest that we tell the nurseries now so they can hop on it,
 > and be ready ... but oh lordy, we don't want it to get away before the
 > university has picked it up.
 > Melodye Abell, though ... she'd know all about how to groom the plants
 > and grow them. We can ask her. If she jumps on it, whoopee.
 >
 > Nobody's feet go onto the site without permission from whoever at the
 > university ... but the nursery next to it becomes very popular indeed.
 > It's a beautiful plan.
 > The USDA doesn't care because it is within state; besides, the principal
 > agents in the plan are cooperative extension agents and Master Gardeners.
 > The Garden Club is happy because everyone loves Evelyn Somerville, and
 > they persuade the DOT to blanket those bare cement walls along I95 and
 > the Turnpike with balloon vine and some other glorious natives ...
 > passiflora incarnata, for instance. Which mingle and look great and
 > harbor many other bugs.
 > Because what's good for the Miami Blue is good for everybody else. ;-)
 > The schools are happy and the universities are happy, because the
 > publicity they get for this project is world wide and it's Good News.
 > The collectors and the folks that raise bugs are happy, because they are
 > the heroes. Without their expertise, we couldn't do this thing.
 > Also if we start this in the next couple of weeks, quite a few people
 > would need to go down to the Keys to check things out, on official tours
 > of course; no freelance jumping the gun. It is warm in the Keys, just 
now.
 > Presently, everybody starts fighting over this, too, but the plants stay
 > there, and the butterflies are reestablished ... along with them, of
 > course, habitat for a lot of other butterflies, for a collector is a
 > collector. I just like mine on the hoof. And all I want is the land that
 > borders mine. ;-)


So I thought, a year ago, that we would do all this stuff with 
reasonable celerity, predicted the university involvement etc. ...

and we all leapt in with enthusiasm, and here we are today.
Cheers
Anne Kilmer
MBBRP


 
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