Diana's Garden Centre
Gardening Tips
Butterfly Gardening
An attainable dream for many Canadians is a kaleidoscope of beautiful flowers blessed by a large variety of sun-dancing butterflies. Where you live does not affect having the beautiful butterflies around you, you may live in the country, downtown or the suburbs and still be able to enjoy them!
Of course having one of the most wonderful and satisfying ways to enjoy butterflies is to watch them dance in your own backyard. You will have a sense of how it feels to create a thing of beauty while assisting to conserve a part of our natural, beautiful heritage.
To entice, keep and maintain enjoying those beautiful butterflies in your garden you require four things. Butterflies need nectar sources, larval food plants, an abundance of sunshine and shelter. Certainly many of the wonderful flowers that are already in your garden are probably most appropriate to attract adult butterflies. Dependent upon the size and type of butterfly you may want to attract, you should do careful planning to organize a variety of flower choices and also ensure that you may want to have the flowering plants that cover all the flight seasons from late spring to early fall. Flowers that can be grown in any part of Canada and are most popular to attract wandering butterflies to visit are Asters, Bee balm (Monarda), coneflowers, Lilacs and Phlox. There are plants that are instant magnets to attracting butterflies of which may be able to be grown in only the more southerly parts of Canada. These plants are called Buddleia (Buddleia davidii) commonly known as Butterfly dish and Asclepias tuberosa also commonly called Butterfly weed, it is an orange flowered member of the milk-weed family. A great idea is to increase the use of perennials which benefits the butterfly population. The early flowering perennials provide great nectar sources of food for butterflies long before the safe planting of summer annuals. In the spring flowering violets (Viola) are important butterfly plants and in the fall Goldenrod (Solidago) and Ironweed (Vernonia) provide an essential nectar source for butterflies. With the proper exposure to the sun and proper sheltered exposure, these plants can be maintained for many years. If you may accommodate more plants to your garden, there are a number of Canadian wild flowering plants will certainly be an asset to attracting butterflies. I recommend highly Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), Joe-Pye-Weed (Eupatorium maculatum), and a species of thistle named Cirsium.
The important key to remember is that all of these plants are high in nectar which definitely attracts butterflies. Hybrid garden plants of low nectar such as geraniums, lilies, mallows and roses are of little use. Always think lots of nectar, when wanting to attract butterflies.
Do not forget that it is equally important to have larval food plants in your garden; this will ensure that you entice, attract and maintain beautiful butterflies. If you have these food plants readily available you may have the joy of knowing that a local butterfly colony established in your garden as they do not wander far from larval food plants! Also if you have these food plants in your garden if is almost certain that you will attract female butterflies as they travel far to find these nourishing foods!
The vegetable garden in your yard can also attract some females. To attract any member of the white butterflies (Pierids) and also Cabbage White (Pieris rapae) you may plant any type of the mustard family. Growing carrot relatives like dill and parsnips or even just carrots will also entice the lovely Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) in Eastern Canada and in the west of Canada you will attract the Anise Swallowtail (P.zelicaon) You may want to yield a maximum of vegetable harvest so ensure that there is no problem and think about planting enough for you and your butterflies!
Almost all butterflies are very choosy about their larval food plants. Some butterflies like a single species of food plant while other s may like a family of food plant. It would be a clever idea to familiar yourself with the types of local common butterflies before you determine what you put in your garden. A good example is if sulphurs are found to be in your neighborhood, then you may want to grow alfalfa and clovers on your property for their caterpillars to eat.
An absolute must for keeping certain butterflies around are some weedy plant species. Angel wings (Polygonia) love to eat thistles and nettles! You may keep these food plants at the back of your garden out of sight and touch to human visitors, but do not worry the butterflies will find them! The beautiful Monarch butterflies and many of the brushfooted butterflies, such as the Painted Lady and the Red Admiral (Vanessa) must have milkweeds for their larvae (notice that as a bonus, most other species require the nectar from these milkweeds) Many Lycaenid butterflies such as Azures (Celestrina), Hairstreaks (Stayrium) and also some brush- footed butterflies (Nympahlis and Limenitis) like to eat form certain trees such as Aspens, Cherries, Oaks and Willows.
Our butterflies are quite simply beautiful creatures of sunshine. Most butterflies require enough sunny areas in your garden to stay about. This may prove difficult in some small city garden, so you may have to do some pruning of trees and/or shrubs to invite more sunshine in. If you are close to a woodland area, there are some shade loving butterflies such as Satyrs that only will be present if there is shade available! Another great essential for a beautiful butterfly garden is shelter from the wind. Not many butterflies will tolerate a high wind for very long especially if they are feeding or searching for larval food plants on which to lay their eggs.
You may want to create a mud puddle so to speak for butterflies! This draws in butterflies and keeps them to your garden on a regular basis. What you need to do is to create this mud puddle by keeping a patch or box of sand dampened. This allows the butterflies to gather at the nutrient or salt enriched area. As we know butterflies are fussy and some only feed on decaying flesh or rotting fruit, so any old fruit put on the ground will attract some of these butterflies. In Canada butterfly gardening's popularity has greatly increased! It has also become a very popular activity in many parts of the world. Just remember high nectar plants, research your common local butterfly, plenty of areas of sunshine and shelter! These essential alone will invite nature's beautiful butterflies to your garden! Do a little research and most importantly when it is butterfly season be sure to enjoy your new visitors!!