Learn How to Attract the Dragonfly and Damselfly
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I live about 50 miles west of St. Louis Missouri. In a somewhat rural area. I live a couple miles out of town with 2 acres. We have many different types of dragonflies and damselflies. A neighbor about an acre away has a 9-acre lake. I'm sure that's why we have so many dragonflies/damsels. I see them all around our swimming pool too and fly above every part of our yard snatching insects. I've planted pollinator gardens and to my dismay, I came upon a dragonfly munching on a large Fritillary butterfly. I was sad, but thought well, that's nature and I have to take the good with the bad. We also have a lot of wildlife. Many birds, rabbits, squirrels, skunks, deer, groundhogs, you name it. It's so wonderful.
Shortly after my husband passed I was out in my back yard and spotted something I had never seen before, a red dragonfly. At first I thought I was just seeing things. I watched it for a while and was able to capture a video n my phone. It was so unbelievable that I had to do some research to see if there really was such a thing. The most amazing thing though was at the same time my son and his family were out hiking miles away and they also saw a red dragonfly. Coincidence, or was it as in my husband’s Native American heritage believe that loved one’s souls ride on red dragonflies to go between worlds?
Thank you for this knowledge as I have Indian ancestry & never heard about the red dragonfly!
Wow!!!
Many Blessings :)
I now have both male and female dragon and damselflies (blue and green) in my New Orleans garden, so I know they're mating. My cast iron 4-foot sugar kettle fountain in full sun is perfect for them. There's native cattail I grew from a corndog seedhead from Bayou Sauvage, native pickerel weed, and Amazonian common water hyacinth I fished out of the Mississippi. It's invasive, but I keep it in check, and so do the natives. Around the fountain, water splashes lightly on mint planted below that bees LOVE, and we use the mint almost daily in summer for tea and salads. I've got birds and cats who drink out of the fountain, frogs, bees of all kinds, butterflies of a half dozen species, small garden snakes, and my favorite, the dragon and damselflies now because of my small, gentle fountain and many natives and flowering plants in and around it. Surprisingly, the mosquitoes aren't bad around the water, even in a swamp bowl like New Orleans, as long as I don't leave the fountain off more than a day or so to kill mosquito eggs that need the water stagnant. The mosquitoes prefer shadier places with no breeze like my hammock corner, sadly. Everyone should get a fountain with plants for dragonflies.
Yesterday I found a damselfly in my garden. I thought it was alive because it was holding on an upright pole. As I got closer found that it was an empty
It was a perfect empty shell with wing spand of 2.5in . I was shocked because of its size. The colors were still on it's shell.
I have never seen one leave his shell like that.
We have a four acre pond in front of our house. Its main use is irrigation water for 2 of our many pivots on our farm. We have water almost constantly flowing in on the upper end and flowing out on the lower end. Our pond is surrounded by various trees, native plants, and is a fantastic ecosystem. We literally have 1000s, if not possibly tens of thousands of dragonflies and damselflies. No mosquitoes! We also have hundreds of different birds, some of which live here year round and others are migratory. I have a wildflower patch which is about 2 acres, so we are loaded with pollinators as well.
Wonderful that you dedicate so much of your property to wildflowers and other assists to insect and bird life - so necessary. Love the benefits to you personally and the land in general.
Glorious❣️❣️❣️
You are SO lucky to have that much land! It was always ny dream, but way too expensive ro buy now.