General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow to Attract Butterflies to Your Garden
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/how-to-attract-butterflies-to-your-garden.html
Fix.com April 23, 2015 3:00 pm
Having a garden is one of lifes greatest pleasures. Tangible benefits can be gained from interacting directly with the natural world, including healing faster after an illness and improving kids creativity and learning. Just think about how the scent of an aster or the feel of its petals completely changes your mood! Flowers and other plants are beautiful and inspiring, but what I call the fourth dimension in gardening is even more so. This fourth dimension includes the insects and favorable wildlife that are attracted to your garden. Here, I will talk about butterflies, whose color and life are as beautiful as a wind-blown meadow. How can you welcome these insects into your garden year-round?
Native Plants
First, its important to select plants that are native to your region. Butterflies and other insects have evolved with the bloom time and taste of plants they know best. When properly sited, native plants can be easier to maintain. Great sources for native plants can be found via the Pollinator Partnerships regional guides and at sites like Find Native Plants. Make sure you incorporate host plants for caterpillars zizia for black swallowtails, milkweed for monarchs, and baptisia for sulphurs. Many native grasses, such as bluestem and sideoats grama, are also host plants, as are trees such as oaks, elms, and willows. Whatever you plant, go for diversity of height, bloom size, and leaf texture the more diverse your garden, the more life it will support from egg to wing.
Source: Fix.com
Long Live the Monarch
All butterflies are beautiful, but if your heart lies with the royals, you may wish to attract monarch butterflies above all others. In that case, you must plant milkweed. Monarchs need milkweed to survive because it hosts much of their lifecycle.
Monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of the milkweeds young leaves in the spring/summer. The eggs hatch into caterpillars, known as larvae, and feed on the milkweed through the five stages of their growth.
FULL story at link.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)I've done it for years. Very rewarding!
OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)This year THIS happened!
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)eppur_se_muova
(36,280 posts)OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)The snapdragon skulls will be perfect!
B2G
(9,766 posts)I absolutely love it, but unfortunately it won't support plants that attract them due to lack of sunlight.
But my shade garden looks spectacular! We have a stone path connecting the front walk to the yard...just a planted Irish & Scotch moss border next to it yesterday.
And an added benefit is I won't sweat my ass off working in it this summer.
PasadenaTrudy
(3,998 posts)put in drought tolerant plants on my parkway. I recognize day lilly and lavender, I also have rosemary. I have an apt. bldg, so no garden, but I do see the occasional butterfly out there
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)I have several plants out in the spring, and in just a few weeks I will find swallowtail caterpillars in them.