Question: We would like to attract bats to our small acreage and heard that, in addition to setting up bat houses, we can plant certain plants to attract them. Can you recommend some?

Answer: Bats are among a gardener's best friends. All bats feed on insects such as moths, mosquitoes, cucumber and June beetles, leafhoppers and even scorpions. In fact, bats are the only major predators of these night-flying insects as well as many agricultural pests. It's a Bat Fact that a bat the size of your thumb can eat up to 600 mosquitoes an hour -- that's 3,000 insects in one night.

Insects are bat food, so create a garden for insects with native plants, night-scented flowers, herbs and flowering vines. An outdoor light is also a good insect lure. Remember to chose plants that bloom throughout the season (April through October), and chose plants that bloom at a variety of levels; e.g., grasses, wildflowers, shrubs, vines and trees. Good choices for a bat garden include:

Salvia - spikes of blooms in red, purple, salmon, lilac, white, blue, and pink Silene - 3" clusters of deep rose flowers Phlox - star-shaped flowers and needles-like leaves Stock - sturdy spikes of full, fragrant flowers which came in pink, white, and lavender, and there's also the evening stock for the night garden. Cornflower - also known as bachelor's buttons, these are fragrant, many-petaled, old-fashioned flowers in pink, blue, white and maroon Spearmint - a fragrant herb, which also has small white blooms.

Flowers that all bloom in the evening include four o'clocks, moonflower, and nicotiana.