Wednesday, October 23, 2024 — 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Gardening for Butterflies and Caterpillars in the East Bay
(online)
Speaker: Susan Karasoff
Wednesday, October 23, 7:30 pm, via Zoom
Register to attend (registration is necessary to join the meeting)
Pipevine swallowtail caterpillars on California pipevine (Aristolochia californica).
Photo by TJ Gehling (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
When we plant local native plants, we build buffets to feed clouds of butterflies! Local East Bay native plants have co-evolved with local butterfly species, and their leaves provide food for the butterflies’ caterpillars. Our speaker will discuss favorite native plants for East Bay butterflies in many plant communities, including oak woodland, grassland, serpentine grassland, chaparral, marsh, riparian, and mixed evergreen forest. These recommendations will help you understand what to plant to implement Professor Doug Tallamy’s recommendations for restoring our ecosystems through our own gardens.
Susan Karasoff is a member of the CNPS Yerba Buena Chapter, and she gardens in San Francisco’s clay and chert soil in former oak woodland. She takes an “only the easiest plants survive” approach to gardening while cultivating a buffet of native plants for butterfly caterpillars and specialist bees along with natives that are edible, shade tolerant, and colorful.
