Grasping the nettle...

I left some nettle seedlings in my tomato patch this year, in effect reserving some dinner tables for the native Red Admiral butterfly. Over a dozen velvety black caterpillars have survived  - as lovely and prickly as their host plants. I do worry the older diners have eaten more than their share, there is not much left for the younger ones coming through. Nature in all its grand tapestry is not always fair in the allotment of meal portions.

Red Admiral caterpillars on the native nettle, Urtica incisa.

New Zealand Red Admirals used to be a lot more common than they are today, but parasitic wasps and a lack of preferred food plants have diminished their numbers over the past decades. The tree nettle - Urtica ferox - is the preferred food host plant but it's much too ferocious for the average home garden. The smaller growing scrub nettle (U. incisa) is far more accommodating, and seems to be an acceptable alternative to the Red Admiral.

New Zealand Red Admiral butterfly

Nettles are not just for butterflies, of course. They have a long history of use as a medicine and food source for people too. As one of the most nutritious plants on the planet, extremely high in protein, iron, and the vitamins C, E and A, no wonder they clothe themselves in fine, syringe like stinging hairs! Boy can they sting!

I remember as an eight year old living in England, trying to leap the stone wall at the bottom of the garden and clear the nettle patch on the other side. It was always an interplay between the stinging nettles and the dock plants growing nearby. If I got decently stung, I'd chew on a dock leaf and use the saliva and dock sap mixture to calm the red welts on my hands and legs. Seems these days we're not supposed to let kids near stinging nettles just in case they get stung (hear that mum?). Nettles are things to avoid completely if you follow the "Safety in pre-school centres: plants to avoid" guidelines. 

So the only caterpillar pupation a three year old is going to witness is the monarch on its nice and safe swan plant host. Don't get me wrong. I would encourage any person, young or old, to marvel in the life cycle of any butterfly.  And monarchs are the royal celebrities of the butterfly world. Red Admirals are a little more unassuming but every bit as delightful. Cabbage whites, yeah maybe not so much ;)

I think nettles must be in decline in the UK, as there is a National "Be Nice to Nettles Week" to encourage people not to spray their verges and leave some patches of nettles free for the wildlife. Mind you, there is a "week" for everything these days - even a "Rubber Spatula Awareness Week" if my dad was to be believed. Anyway, the Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust has prepared a "Beginner's Guide to Nettles" if you happen to be interested in finding out more about supporting nettles in your neighbourhood. Seeds are occasionally offered for sale by Trust members, and some NZ plant nurseries even sell plants. I've tried growing seedlings in pots and hanging baskets, but they don't do nearly as well as in a sheltered spot in the garden, free from an over enthusiastic weeder. 

I'm going to save the seed and collect it this year and plan a larger area for nettles next spring. I'm tempted to harvest the young nettles and try some infusion teas and maybe even nettle soup as a pick-me-up after winter - supposedly very good for the constitution given its high nutritional content. Or maybe I could use the leaves to make a liquid tea to feed the greenhouse plants. Most likely I won't get around to any of that, and there'll be a bigger patch next year for the butterflies.

I will however tell the kids to avoid running through the nettle patch (accepting that nettle stings are something they will get over). I'll show them what a dock plant looks like, and how to chew and spit it, just in case!