Butterfly Food

Butterfly Gardening
By: Jane Lake

Butterfly gardening is not only a joy it is one way that you can help restore declining butterfly populations. Simply adding a few new plants to your backyard may attract dozens of different butterflies according to landscape designers at the University of Guelph.

Butterflies like honeybees are excellent pollinators and will

help increase your flower fruit and vegetable production if you

provide them with a variety of flowers and shrubs. They are also beautiful to watch and are sometimes called flowers on the wing.

Begin by seeding part of your yard with a wildflower or

butterfly seed mix available through seed catalogues and garden

centers. Wildflowers are a good food source for butterflies and

their caterpillars.

Choose simple flowers over double hybrids. They offer an

easytoreach nectar source.

Provide a broad range of flower colors. Some butterflies like

oranges reds and yellows while others are drawn toward white purple or blue flowers.

Arrange wildflowers and cultivated plants in clumps to make it

easier for butterflies to identify them as a source of nectar.

If caterpillars are destroying favorite plants transfer them

by hand to another food source. Avoid the use of pesticides

which can kill butterflies

and other beneficial insects.

Some common caterpillar food sources are asters borage

chickweed clover crabgrass hollyhocks lupines mallows

marigold milkweed or butterfly weed nasturtium parsley pearly everlasting ragweed spicebush thistle violets and wisteria. Caterpillars also thrive on trees such as ash birch black locust elm and oak.

Annual nectar plants include ageratum alyssum candy tuft

dill cosmos pinks pin cushion flower verbena and zinnia.

Common perennial nectar plants include chives onions pearly

everlasting chamomile butterfly weed milkweeds daisies

thistles purple coneflower sea holly blanket flower lavender marjoram mints moss phlox sage stonecrops goldenrod dandelion and valerian.

Remember that butterflies are coldblooded insects that bask in

the sun to warm their wings for flight and to orient themselves. They also need shelter from the wind a source of water and partly shady areas provided by trees and shrubs.

Copyright 2005 Jane Lake

About the Author:

Jane Lake is a professional writer whose articles have appeared

in Canadian Living You Modern Woman and Highlights magazines. See more information on butterflies in her article Butterfly Gardens: How to Attract Butterflies to Your Garden and learn how to make your own butterfly food and butterfly feeders in Butterfly Food.

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Jane Lake is a professional writer whose articles have appeared in Canadian Living You Modern Woman and Highlights magazines. See more information on butterflies in her article Butterfly Gardens: How to Attract Butterflies to Your Garden and learn how to make your own butterfly food and butterfly feeders in Butterfly Food.