A Weekend of Bugs
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Each year our local Star Nursery offers free Early Girl tomato plants in March and then free ladybugs in April. We buy most of our new plantings there so we usually pick up our freebies when they’re offered. We planted two Early Girls in our raised planter and they’re thriving. This past Saturday was Ladybug Giveaway Day at Star and we picked some up early Saturday morning.
Glad they were pre-fed because we didn’t have any ladybug food lying around
They are best released at dawn or dusk with the hopes that they’ll stick around for awhile if it’s cool and darker. Since we weren’t planning to release them till Saturday night, we put them in the fridge to keep them healthy till release time. Some on-line research indicated that if we misted our plants first and released the bugs at dusk, there would be a better chance that they’d stick around. I thought they were all dead when we first took them from the fridge, but fortunately after a couple of minutes, they were squirming to get out.
I misted and David did the big release on the tomato plants and our solitary Judy Garland rose bush. The ladies were not at all that impressed with either. They crawled off and headed away for greener pastures. By morning when we checked, there was nary a ladybug in sight.
Spurned by the ladybugs, we opted to head to Springs Preserve on Sunday. In the middle of the Mojave Desert, the Springs Preserve area was an oasis for early travelers. Las Vegas translated from Spanish is ‘the meadows’ and Springs Preserve is now 180 acres of trails, museums and botanical gardens about three miles from the Las Vegas Strip owned and operated by the Las Vegas Valley Water District. It’s an awesome place.
This weekend was the opening of the Butterfly Pavilion. Since the ladybugs flew away, we figured we’d have a better chance with captive butterflies. The line was long since entry is limited to X amount of people at a time. We were a little disappointed. The pavilion is small and there weren’t very many butterflies flitting about and only 3-4 different species. Additionally, they didn’t identify the species which would have been nice. Still, it’s always lovely to watch them fluttering by, dancing from flower to flower, perhaps celebrating their short-lived lives.
Views of the Springs Preserve
The cactus gardens are awesome.
Beyond the pavilion, however, there’s so much to see and do. A delightful lunch overlooking the park at the cafe, two museums, lots of green and sustainability ideas and displays, acres of desert botanical gardens and the list goes on.
We picked up some sample wildflower seeds specific to the Las Vegas climate as well as a new book, Extreme Gardening by Dave Owens, which might give us some hints of trying to grow veggies in Las Vegas without roasting them before harvest.