Love our Butterfly Garden? Want your Own?
More butterfly gardens needed! One butterfly garden every 50 miles or so will not support a strong butterfly population. They need lots of stopping and feeding places within an easy day=s flight, so the more butterfly-friendly plantings and gardens we have, the better. It is easy - if you have some garden space, you can do it here in Florida year round, and you can have one at your northern home in the summer as well. You can do it the easy way - just add butterfly-friendly plants to your existing landscaping, using trees, shrubs and perennials. Or you can dedicate a garden area, using more colorful annuals as well.
Some basic essentials:
- a sunny location, both for the butterflies and for the plants
- temperatures above 65 F at least part of the day
- some protection from strong winds - bushes or trellises will do;
- no pesticides, no matter what the provocation
- nectar plants with lots of color, planted in clusters, not isolated patches
- larva plants for the caterpillars to eat, clustered to supply large numbers at once
- woody bushes to provide shelter for the hanging pupas or chrysalises
- an irrigation system
- water that is accessible to butterflies, e.g. in pan of pebbles or sand
Kinds of Plants
Your local
nursery may have lists of butterfly-friendly plants, or they may label plants
on display as butterfly-friendly. You can also find lots of help in books and
on line. When planning new or renewed landscaping, ask your contractor or
nursery supplier to pick trees and shrubs that are butterfly-friendly, as well
as beautiful. There are dozens to chose from here in Florida, and many in the
north as well; among them are Firebush, Cassia, Porterweed,, Ixora, Hibiscus,
Duranta, Buddleia, and many more. In this way you can have a low-maintenance
butterfly garden without doing anything different, except in plant selection.
If you are planting a full-fledged butterfly garden, you will want to provide the essentials above, and select two kinds of plants: nectar and larva. You will need a variety of colorful nectar-rich plants for butterflies, plus several kinds of very specific green plants for the larva or caterpillars, which are particular in their eating habits, each species having its own often-unique preference. You will have to be tolerant when it comes to the larva plants, for they may be eaten away from time to time. If that happens, don=t spray, just keep replacing them as needed.
You will also want to vary sizes, from ground cover such as verbena, to bedding plants like Pentas and Lantana, shrubs such as those mentioned above, and trellis-climbing vines such as passion vine and Dutchman=s pipe.
If the plants you select have different watering needs, you may want to have lighter and heavier watering zones in your garden. Scorpion Tail, for example, likes to be dry, and could probably survive completely free of irrigation, while Water Hemlock loves soggy ground such as at the edge of a pond.
Once you get the
garden started, don