Butterfly Gardening

Who doesn't enjoy watching butterflies winging around your yard or garden? They are the most beautiful creatures on Earth. Butterfly gardening is an easy way to bring us back to nature and to see more of them. Many butterfly habitats have been lost to mankind activities such as building homes and roads.

A butterfly garden can be any size - a window box, a section of your landscaped yard or an untended area of a large yard. The best way to start is to investigate how many different butterflies are native to your area. Of that composite choose the ones that you would like to see visit your garden and learn which flowers and plants that they both feed on and lay eggs on.

Your garden should be located in a sunny area as butterflies are cold-blooded insects. They need plenty of sunlight to warm their wings to allow for flight. It is easier for butterflies to fly and feed in a serene area so you need to provide a shelter from the wind and rain.

Your butterfly garden should have annuals and perennials pertinent to your native landscaping. The perennials should be in the back of your garden because they will come back year after year with your annuals in front for easier replacing every year.

For instance the Eastern Tiger butterfly likes the Blue Cardinal flower and Common Milkweed; the Variegated Fritillary enjoys Black-Eyed Susan and Zinnia; the Monarch favors Marigold and Smooth Aster and the Painted Lady savors Brazilian Verbena and Common Milkweed just to name a few. It is best if your flower garden has several varieties of flowers for them to choose from, this way you will be attracting more than one type of butterfly, but it is better to plant the same varieties together. A good idea is to place some rocks in your garden so the butterflies have a place to stop and rest their wings.

Generally speaking butterflies are around from spring into fall in most parts of the country so it is best to plant flowers for a succession of blooms through the growing season.

A great garden accessory would be a butterfly house; it has slots the ideal size for keeping out the birds while giving butterflies protection from the wind and rain. You may also want to place your favorite outdoor furniture near the butterfly garden so that you can enjoy all of your beautiful winged visitors day after day.