Creating a Butterfly Garden

I believe butterflies are one of the greatest joys that come from having a small garden. Aside from being pretty they give you a peaceful feeling when watching them fly around. Creating a butterfly garden to attracting butterflies is not a difficult thing to do if you create the right conditions. You’ll need to include nectar-producing flowering plants in your butterfly garden for the butterflies to feed on. Some common examples of these are:

• Common milkweed
• Hollyhock
• Fire bush (it’s low maintenance, and it may even attract hummingbirds)
• Shrimp plant
• Butterfly bush
• Wild coffee
• Lily, lavender
• Sage
• Petunia
• Zinnia

Zinnias are particularly attractive to butterflies, they love them.

Encouraging Butterflies To Stay In Your Garden

Attracting them is only half the job.  In order to keep them in the butterfly garden and encourage them to lay eggs you also need to provide plants for the caterpillars. Caterpillars need their own host plants to feed on and female butterflies will be attracted to these plants. The most interesting part is that each caterpillar species needs a specific host plant and they actually can’t survive on any other pant. You may want to plant the nectar and caterpillar host plants close together to encourage the butterflies to choose your host plants to lay eggs on. Some common host plants are: milkweed, dill and clover.

Aside from plants you may also want to provide a small water source to attract the butterflies and keep them around.  A small rock with an indentation or pit that can collect water will suffice.

Although butterflies are beautiful they do have a downside – the caterpillars. Don’t be alarmed when see a lot of holes in your host plants, this is a necessary part of their life cycle and will not harm the plants. Despite this, butterflies are considered beneficial insects since they help pollinate the garden.

The coolest part is that by choosing specific butterfly host plants you can determine which species of butterflies you get visiting you. Just be sure to get the corresponding caterpillar host plants so they will stay in your small garden.

Learn More About Butterflies

For more in-depth information visit The Butterfly Site. Here you can find everything you ever wanted to know about butterflies. On this page you will find which butterflies live in your area (worldwide), butterfly host plants, and caterpillar host plants.

To find out if these plants are native to your area of the U.S & Canada, visit:

http://www.wildflower.org/collections/

So, do you have butterflies or a butterfly garden?