Today’s Garden Ideas

Lets hang out the welcome sign and develop a butterfly garden plan to attract and keep those beautiful flutter bugs coming back year after year. Butterfly gardens come in all shapes and sizes from large acre size to the small few feet plot. All you need are the correct butterfly garden plants that will attract the baby butterflies, the caterpillars, and keep the adults fluttering around your home. Of course you will need to plant butterfly plants appropriate for your area. And, don’t forget, butterfly gardens are appropriate year round in some climates. You just need to be sure the butterfly garden plants are flowering year round.

Designing Your Garden

To begin, visit your local library, call the neighborhood entomologist, or search on line for butterflies native to your area. Learn which plants these butterflies prefer as baby caterpillars, which garden plants adult butterflies prefer to lay their eggs on, and which flowering plants the adults prefer for their food, nectar.

Adults prefer groups of flowering plants, not just one plant with a few flowers. They are especially attracted to dandelions and clovers and your chances of seeing butterflies will increase greatly if you let these plants pop up here and there in your lawn. Try to avoid using insecticides as these can destroy caterpillars. Butterflies require warmth in the cool of the morning so provide some stones in your butterfly garden placed in the morning sun so the butterflies can warm up from the cool night. Butterflies, because they are so delicate, require shelter. Be sure to provide some shrubs for them to hide in when the wind and rain blow through. In addition caterpillars like to use the shrubs to attach their cocoons where they slowly pupate into butterflies. You can even purchase butterfly houses for your butterfly garden. These houses have small openings just big enough for a butterfly and they protect the insect from nasty weather.

Plant Ideas

Some popular plants that attract and keep butterflies coming back to your butterfly garden are the spring blooming flowers like Sweet Pea or Candytuft. Butterfly Weed and Queen Anne’s Lace are popular summer blooms for butterfly gardens. Fall might find Goldenrod or New England Aster attracting butterflies to you butterfly garden. And, in those warmer climates Butterfly Bush and Lilac provide delicious nectar for your butterfly friends.

Adult female butterflies are extremely particular as to which plant they will deposit their eggs. And each butterfly species prefers a different plant for her eggs. Once you have researched the types of butterfly species you want to see in your butterfly garden look into which plants the females prefer to use for their developing eggs and which plants the caterpillars prefer to feed and pupate on.

Once you have completed your garden a good pair of binoculars might be in order so you wont miss a flit or a flutter as you butterflies go from bloom to bloom feeding on the nectar from your butterfly garden plants. You might even want to invest in a camera with a telephoto lens to forever capture the beauty of these creatures as they spread their wings and show off their glorious colors.

PLANTS FOR A BLOOMING BUTTERFLY GARDEN
TYPE	PLANT	DESCRIPTION
	Cosmos Bipinnatus	H: 4-8 ft, S: 1 ft; pink, red, or white Daisy-like flowers from summer to early fall; annual; all zones
	Ageratum	H: 6-12in, S: 8-12in; bears clusters of fuzzy, lilac-blue, white or pink flowers from late spring to frost; good edging plant; annual; all zones
	African Marigold	H: 3ft, S: 1.5ft; orange or gold flowers all summer; annual; all zones
	Verbena	H: 8-12in, S: 1ft; purple, pink, white or red blooms from early summer to frost; annual; all zones
	Wax Begonia	H 8-12in, S: 10in; pink, white or red flowers from late spring to frost; annual; all zones
	Petunia	H and S: 8-18in, bears flowers in various hues and patters from late spring to frost; annual; all zones
	Flowering Tobacco	H 2-5ft, S: 1-2 ft; tube shaped, white, purple, pink or green, fragrant flowers from summer to fall; annual; all zones
	Dahlia	H: 2-6 ft. S: 2-4ft; flowers in many forms and colors; blooms from mid-summer to frost; zones 3-8
	Delphinium	H: 2-7ft., S: 2ft; blue, lilac or ivory flower spikes in summer; needs staking; zones 3-7