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 Butterfly
Gardening
Adding the beauty and color of butterflies to your landscape can
be an enjoyable and educational experience. A successful butterfly
garden is one that contains all the components that butterflies
need for food, shelter and breeding, while providing all the beauty
and design that appeal to the gardener.
Beckoning Butterflies to Your Yard
Butterflies can feed in shade, but they must have sun to keep their
bodies warm enough to fly. Butterflies can only fly effectively
when their body temperature is about 85 to 100ƒF. When the air is
cooler, they will bask in the sun to warm themselves to effective
flight temperature.
If your yard is basically shady, you can help butterflies by putting
some flat dark colored stones or evergreens in spots that get early
morning sun. Watch the butterflies as they use the sun-warmed stones
and evergreens to absorb heat and start flying earlier.
Provide Shelter
Build your butterfly garden in a location that is
sheltered from the wind.  This
will help in two ways: butterflies are not cooled by breezes, and
they do not have to expend extra energy fighting wind currents as
they try to feed, mate and lay eggs. If possible, provide a windbreak
with tall shrubs, vines and trees.
Flowers, Flowers Everywhere
Next, grow sweetly scented flowers that produce nectar. Flower
nectar is a primary food source for most butterflies. Butterflies,
like most birds, take nectar from a wide variety of annuals, perennials,
shrubs, trees, vines and herbs.
Be sure your garden offers nectar-producing flowers throughout
the blooming season so that butterflies can always find food. Also,
grow nectar plants of varying heights - smaller species of butterflies
tend to stay low, while larger species prefer to stay high while
feeding.
When planting flowers, be sure to provide a variety that will be
available from early summer to late fall. Group them together -
given a choice, butterflies usually choose those that are abundant.
Some good plants to incorporate into your butterfly haven include
buddleia, asters, globe thistles, phloxes, cone flowers, marigolds,
black-eyed Susans, lantanas, zinnias, rudbeckias, salvias and butterfly
weeds.
Puddling
Butterflies like to drink and obtain essential nutrients and minerals
from the moist areas around puddled water. Streams, ponds and small
shallow water basins, either natural or artificial, are necessary
assets to your butterfly garden.
Attractive Feeders
 In
addition to sweet nectar-producing plants, trees and flowers, Southern
States carries brightly colored specialty butterfly feeders and
sweet-tasting nectar, too.
Hibernation House
When winter comes, some butterflies need to find a suitable place
to hibernate.
In addition to tree crevices, under bark or in log piles, you can
provide a hibernation house. Hibernation houses have narrow, vertical
holes cut into them that are small enough to keep predators out,
but large enough for butterflies to enter and leave. Always place
a hibernation house in a shady area of the garden so that butterflies
will not become overheated inside.
A Natural Garden
A natural setting is both attractive and essential to butterflies'
well-being. Pesticides and herbicides should not be used in a butterfly
garden.
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