A butterfly garden is one of the best ways to attract butterflies to your yard. Almost everyone enjoys the color and presence of beautiful butterflies. There are many flowers that you can plant to attract butterflies to your yard. A butterfly garden can be grown in many different designs. The size of your butterfly garden depends on the space in your yard that you want to plant it. It doesn’t have to be a lot of space, sometimes just flowers in pots will attract a fair amount of butterflies.
While butterflies do not eat in the traditional sense, they have a proboscis, or long tube in their mouth that acts like a straw for drinking. If you watch them while they are perched on a flower or melon rind, you will see them probing with something that looks almost like one of their feelers. Watch closely and you will see them stick their proboscis into the flower or melon rind and drink the nectar or liquid.
The most important part of a butterfly garden is the plants that you plant in it. Some plants attract butterflies and some don’t attract them. They really like summer lilac, daisies, Purple Coneflower, Yellow Sage, lavender, petunias, Butterfly Bush and Valerian. There is a wild milk weed that is called Butterfly weed that butterflies like, too. There are a lot of herbs that butterflies like, too.
They mostly feed on nectar from flowers but also eat tree sap, dung, pollen, or rotting fruit. They are attracted to sodium found in salt and sweat. This is why they sometimes even land on people. Sodium as well as many other minerals is vital for the butterfly’s reproduction
Butterflies love melon rinds. Just put the rinds around in your flower pots or on the ground and the butterflies will flock to it. When it gets dried out, turn it over and step on the rind and it will get mushy and easier for them to eat.
Design your garden so it has eye appeal to you, too. Use colors and plants that you like. Some people find it helpful to draw a layout of what the finished garden should like. That way they can have a plan before they start their garden. If you decide to make a large butterfly garden, you can even add gravel paths through it.
The wind can be harsh on the butterflies. It is best to plant the garden where it has a wind break from a building or taller plants. If you can, plant your butterfly garden where you can see it from a window of your home. Also, have places to sit in your garden and some of the butterflies will light on you. Butterflies are cold-blooded creatures so your garden should be in the sun for about six hours a day.
Another common butterfly behavior called puddling refers to butterflies that congregate in shallow water or wet areas to grab a drink on a warm sunny day. If there is no water available, a mud puddle can be made from mixing water and dirt. The only problem with this is the sun dries the mud puddle out so fast in the summer and it becomes hard.
The caterpillars of almost all butterflies eat various parts of plants. Each species may specialize in only a few kinds of plants or plant parts. The caterpillars of the Harvester butterfly and its relatives are exceptions in that they feed solely on aphids. It is important to find good host plants to grow in your butterfly garden that are unique to the types of butterflies that are native in your area.
Another way to attract adult butterflies to your yard is to offer places for females to lay their eggs. These are called host plants. Some females are pickier about which host to lay their eggs on than others. You will need to find out what kinds of butterflies are native to your area to know which types of host plants you will need to grow.
So have fun, plant a butterfly garden and enjoy watching the beautiful butterflies enjoy your creation.
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