Celebrate summer by welcoming butterflies into your garden. Butterfly gardens are different from many other “theme†gardens. To be successful, the garden not only needs to have a pleasing design that works with the surrounding home and landscape, but it needs to perform a very specific task. Attracting butterflies may seem fairly straightforward, but you cannot assume all butterflies are attracted to all flowers.
Butterflies are beautiful, somewhat ethereal creatures whose colorful wings and graceful flight patterns add a sense of wonder to any garden planting
Butterflies have plant preferences: There are literally thousands of species of butterflies, and each species tends to have a distinct group of plants as preferred food source. When selecting plants for a butterfly garden, it is also important to remember that a butterfly goes through four life cycles, with one set of food requirements for the larval stage and another type of food once the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis.
The nectar sources for butterflies include annuals, perennials, wildflowers, herbs, shrubs and trees. Annuals and tender perennials known to attract many species of butterfly include zinnias, white alyssum, marigolds, lantana, cosmos, nicotiana, petunias, ageratum, fuchsia, snapdragons and sunflowers. Herbs and wildflowers that attract butterflies include chives and other alliums, bee balm, spearmint, Anaphalis, Lunaria, Verbena, dandelions, clover, Queen Anne’s Lace, butterfly weed, goldenrod and thistle.
Perennials for butterfly gardens include daisies, Phlox, Aster, Liatris, Rudbeckia, Echinacea, Eupatorium, Achillea, Aubretia, Helenium, Echinops, Limonium, Sedum, Phystostegia, Scabiosa, Coreopsis, Hemerocallis, Heuchera, Lilium, Lythrum, Lavandula, Myosotis and Penstemon. Shrubs, vines and trees for butterfly gardens include Abelia, Aesculus, Aruncus, Buddleia, Clethra, Crataegus, Lindera, Lonicera, Malus, Prunus, Ribes, Salix, Spirea, Syringa, Vaccinium and Wisteria.
Design help: If a butterfly garden is to be created as part of an older, established landscape, look for a site that offers shelter—an overgrown fence, a clump of trees, the base of a sloping lot, or a rocky outcropping with a flat, grassy spot nearby. Water features and several hours of sun would complete the picture—minus only the butterfly-attracting plants.
Call it serendipity, but the preferred style of planting for design purposes—starting with low edging plants and gradually working up, level by level, to the tallest plants—is also one of the best arrangements for a butterfly garden. This is not only because it makes it easier for the butterflies to identify their favorite nectar-producing plants when they are clearly visible, but the taller plants offer shelter from both wind and predators.
The popular concept of a mixed border, combining annuals, perennials, herbs, roses, shrubs, vines and ornamental trees, all underplanted with bulbs, will provide a long bloom season as well as a variety of food sources and forms of shelter that will attract a large assortment of butterflies over a long period.
Other design guidelines: Although some theme gardens need meticulous care and a neat, sometimes formal appearance to create the intended ambience, butterflies like their surroundings to be a little messy. Rocky paths muddied by a sprinkler or parts of the garden where water pools on flat rocks will attract many species of butterfly like a luxury spa attracts movie stars. Research indicates that minerals released through the water’s evaporation process, primarily sodium, may play a vital part in the mating habits of butterflies. For this reason, some experts recommend putting small salt licks in a butterfly garden.
Areas in or around the garden where grass is allowed to grow long can act as a shelter and, for some species, a place to lay their eggs. If you can live with a section of your garden that is somewhat overgrown with grass, wildflowers, trees and shrubs, you will probably find more butterflies in this little wilderness than among carefully tended flower beds
Like plants, there are woodland butterfly species and those that prefer a sunny spot. Even sun-loving butterflies will appreciate the presence of a shaded shelter.
Butterflies have a powerful sense of smell. Much like dogs, the scents that they find attractive aren’t always scents the human population likes to encourage. Rotting fruits and vegetables are gourmet treats for some butterflies, while others are drawn to the more pleasant aromas of clover or wild violets.
Pesticides and herbicides should be avoided, whenever possible, because in almost every stage of life butterflies are extremely vulnerable to such toxins.
Some butterflies stay around for winter: Not many butterflies overwinter in the extreme climates of the Midwest, but those that do ( sometimes called “hibernators†) will also benefit from winter shelter—mounds of ivy growing over old tree stumps, piles of logs or large, dead tree branches, a stack of old bricks or chunks of concrete.
Some butterflies will hibernate in old trees, while others will welcome the presence of specially designed “butterfly houses†as winter shelter. Winter or summer, butterflies need protection from the wind and a place where the sun will be reflected, somewhere safe from predators—including the trampling feet of children.
Types of butterflies: Monarch butterflies are usually a common sight in Illinois. Other likely candidates include Cabbage White butterflies, Clouded Sulphur, Orange Sulphur, Eastern-Tailed Blue, Meadow Fritillary, Pearl Crescent, Viceroy, Great Spangled Fritillary, Summer Azure, Question Mark, Least Skipper, European Skipper, and the Dion Skipper.
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