Image by jpc.raleigh via Flickr

by Adam Fulford

Your basic objective in making a butterfly garden is to attract butterflies to your garden, keep them there when they come visiting and encourage them to keep coming back again and again. And how do you do this?

As we learned earlier, we make sure our garden features both nectar-producing plants as well as ‘host’ plants for the caterpillars. When selecting nectar-producing plants, remember that butterflies are active from spring until late summer and therefore it’s imperative to have flowers in bloom throughout the season if we’re to have any chance of attracting them. Care must therefore be taken to plant annuals and perennials which provide a steady supply of nectar. Flowers with multiple florets produce large quantities of nectar and thus are ideal to attract butterflies.

Some butterflies are attracted by plants of some colors and even seem to avoid plants of other colors. The Silver Spotted Skipper likes lots of colors — red, pink, blue, purple, white – but not yellow flowers. Sulphur Butterflies, on the other hand, prefer yellow flowers.

Short-tube flowers of lantana, phlox, and verbena have ‘nectaries’ that are at the base of the tube and are readily available to butterflies. Pipevine Swallowtails have long proboscises and feed on the nectar of bergamot flowers. And so do birds

The nectar of Alfalfa flowers appeals to Checkered Whites, Dogfaces, Red Admirals and Southern Dogfaces. Incidentally, these plants play host to the caterpillars of the Orange Sulphur butterflies. Alfalfas are a host plants for the caterpillars of Dogface Butterflies and Clouded Sulphur butterflies.

Many butterflies favor the nectar of Asters, including American Painted Ladies, Cabbage Whites, Common Buckeyes, Common Checkered Skippers, Dainty Sulphurs, Eastern Tailed Blues, Fritillaries, Fiery Skippers, Red Admirals and Eastern Tailed Blues. Asters
sometimes serve as host plants to Dainty Sulphurs.

Banded Hairstreaks and Eastern Tailed Blue butterflies will likely grace gardens with White Sweet Clover Flowers. Skippers and Swallowtails butterflies stretch their long proboscises down the long tubes of Beardtongue Flowers to sip nectar. Little hummingbirds also like the nectar of these flowers.

New Jersey Tea plants provide nectar to the Banded Hairstreak and Peck’s Skipper. They are a host plant for the caterpillars of Spring/Summer Azure butterflies. They also attract insects that hummingbirds like to eat. Cloudless Sulphur butterflies sometimes sip the nectar of Cardinal flowers, as do hummingbirds. Everlasting Peas provide nectar to the Silver-spotted Skipper.

Goldenrod flower nectar provides meals for Giant Swallowtails, Little Yellows, Milbert’s Tortoiseshells, Orange Sulphurs and American Painted Lady (By now you might have noticed that the American Painted Ladies like almost everything). Hibiscus flowers provide nectar to Cloudless Sulphurs, Common Checkered Skipper and Monk Skippers. Honeysuckle Flowers attract Giant Swallowtails and Northern Cloudywings.

Milkweeds are very popular with butterflies. Monarch and Queen butterflies are born on milkweeds and attain all of their nourishment from these bountiful plants. Milkweeds also provide nectar for Monarch Butterflies, Queen butterflies, American Painted Ladies, Banded Hairstreaks, Black Swallowtails, Fiery Skipper, Giant Swallowtails, Northern Cloudywing, Orange Sulphurs, Pearl Crescents, Peck’s Skippers, Zebra Swallowtails, Silver Spotted Skippers, Red Admirals and Question Marks.

Rest assured, you can attract a whole host of butterflies to your garden.

Image by Sourav_85 via Flickr

by Adam Fulford

It’s great to have a butterfly garden and watch those fluttering ‘rainbows of color’ flitting gracefully from flower to flower a short distance away from you. But here’s how you can get the butterflies to visit you really up close as you sit on your front porch or stand at the window.

You hang a butterfly feeder near to where you sit or stand. A butterfly feeder not only supplements the butterflies’ nectar supply but will also attract them to visit you really close. You can either purchase a ready-made butterfly feeder or even make one at home yourself. It’s quite simple.

Find a small empty jar with a lid. Puncture a hole into the lid. Now stuff the hole with cotton.

Mix 8 parts of water with 1 part of honey. (Some experts say sugar is more effective than honey, but frankly, both serve the purpose). Heat the water and honey mixture in a pot. Stir well. Then let the pot stand to cool off.

Once the mixture is cooled enough, pour it into the jar. Take some brightly colored cloth pieces. Cut and fold them into oval pieces, stick them like the petals of a flower to the rim of the jar.

Now hang the jar sideways, at the edge of your porch or at your window. Make sure the drops of honey-water mixture seep out through the cotton. Attracted by the bright cloth petals on the jar, the butterflies will soon come visiting and drink the ‘artificial’ nectar. (By hanging the jar sideways, you ensure that the butterflies have a perch to sit on while they drink).

Image by lewiselementary via Flickr

by Adam Fulford

Interested in making your own butterfly garden? Great! You and I, we’re already friends.

This is what you do. Step out, look around you. Look at the kinds of butterflies that visit your neighborhood. Slowly. Don’t rush these things.

Note down the flowers that the butterflies frequent. Find out the names of the plants. Note the colors, the fragrances, the dimensions, how big are the clusters of the same type of flowers. (You’ll notice you won’t see just one individual plant or two). Note down the height of the plants, how they’re placed in relation to one another. Do you see a little patch of moist mud, a little puddle of water that the butterflies drink water from or the flat rock or wall around it? Take a long look at how butterflies behave. You could supplement your findings by reading books about butterflies and their habitats, checking out internet sites, talking to butterfly experts or professionals (they’re called lepidopterists) or you might also find dedicated organizations in your county or province that are associated with butterfly watching and study.

Now you’re ready to begin.

Perhaps, it would be best if you plant the seeds in small pots or containers while you ready the soil in the patch of land you’ve earmarked for the butterfly garden. This way the seeds are protected from birds and simultaneously the soil is turned to make it ready for the sapling. (Be sure you have the right soil that fosters healthy growth of these plants).

Choose a sunny spot. Butterflies love to bask in the sun and are not tolerant to the cold. Give them a shelter away from the wind and rain. Make sure there’s a flat piece of rock or wall where butterflies can bask and obtain energy in their wings before they take flight. Place small, moist mud puddles within the garden so the butterflies can extract water and salts from them.

You should know the bloom times of different plants and try to plant in such a way that there are enough flowers in bloom throughout the butterfly season. Butterflies generally surface from early spring and are visible right through until autumn. Make sure you grow plants that provide nectar as well as ‘growth food’ for the caterpillars throughout this period so as to keep them coming to you. Annuals bloom throughout the season, providing an unending supply of nectar. Perennials too are great butterfly attracters.

Butterflies do not have strong eyesight but they have a strong sense of smell. Rather than plant individual saplings that produce individual pinpoints of color, you should plant clusters of the same saplings so the butterflies see large splashes of color. Generally, butterflies prefer white, purple, red, orange and yellow. Some plants grow tall, some short. Plant the taller ones behind the shorter ones. Make sure that the flowers of the plants you plant are good sources of nectar. Avoid those large, bulbous showy flowers. They are poor nectar sources. Ideally, flowers with multiple florets produce a good quantity of nectar and butterflies are naturally attracted to them.

In all this, do not forget that you also need to have ‘host’ plants in your garden. These are plants that the adult butterfly lays her eggs on and whose leaves the emerging caterpillar can chew on and grow before it forms a cocoon around itself and metamorphoses into a butterfly. Remember, butterflies are basically searching for these two very important types of plants: nectar producing plants and ‘host’ plants.

And your objective is to watch them.

Image by S.L. Sagan via Flickr

by Adam Fulford

A butterfly garden is basically a garden of specific plants which not only yield you some of the most beautiful and fragrant flowers, they also return an array of some of the beautiful butterflies you’ll see.

Watching a butterfly flitting gracefully from one flower to another can be one of the most beautiful and delightful experiences that nature can offer you and your loved ones. And, if you so choose, you can have a myriad of such ‘nature’s colorful angels’, cavorting in your garden patch, right in front of your window or porch. That’s precisely what a butterfly garden can give you.

A good butterfly garden is meticulously planned to accommodate plants whose flowers are rich in nectar as well as those specific plants that female adult butterflies look for, to lay their eggs on. Such a garden will have not just one or two plants bearing a type of flower but rather, clusters of plants of the same flower. In a good butterfly garden you’ll see various colors especially red, yellow, purple and orange. You’ll see flowers that allow the butterfly to sit on their petals; you’ll see the taller plants arranged behind shorter ones, you’ll see rocks and stones for butterflies to bask on and little puddles of water and patches of moist mud that butterflies so often frequent.

And it’s not difficult to make a butterfly garden. There are scores of sites on the internet and books and periodicals that’ll inform you about the various but simple considerations you’d need to make in order to experience the delight of watching butterflies up close in your own butterfly garden.

Did you know that butterflies do not pay as much attention to humans as birds do, (birds are always flighty and nervous) which means you can sit up close and observe them… like that equally calming experience of watching goldfish in a bowl. And don’t be surprised if a butterfly or two mistakes the bright T-shirt you’re wearing to be a source of nectar and visit you up close.

With so-called urbanization and development, many of the butterfly’s natural habitats have been sacrificed, when all they need are those flowers they can feed on and those plants they can lay their eggs on. Butterflies feed on nectar – the sweet honeydew that many flowers produce. And they look for those plants to lay their eggs on that provide the leaves that the newly-hatched caterpillars can chew on and grow. Do they ask for much? No! But somehow man in his self-important ways seems to have denied even such a simple convenience for one of nature’s most beautiful creatures. But then, you don’t have to be like that. Perhaps you could create your own butterfly garden and invite these ‘flying rainbows’ to your doorstep.

A good butterfly garden teaches you that life is about all of nature’s creations, not just of our own selves. It’s a treat for the eyes and the soul. You don’t need more.