Saturday, October 23, 2010

Creating A Butterfly Garden

By Victor Hood

You need to learn the basics of creating a garden that's perfect for butterflies. You need to plan a garden with the purpose of attracting butterflies, keeping them in your garden, and making the environment friendly for them to breed.

First, you need to choose plants that produce nectar for the butterflies and hopefully through the summer they will provide continuous blooms. The most important time to have blooms is mid to late summer. During this time, butterflies are most active. Flowers that produce multiple blooms on a single plant and contain a lot of nectar are best.

You probably want to choose a variety of annuals for your garden, because annuals bloom all though the season. Because they provide a continuous supply of nectar, the butterflies will keep coming to your yard all season.

Some perennials are very good for attracting butterflies. Favorites for butterfly gardens include lilac and asters. Butterflies adore coneflowers. Also providing good nectar for butterflies are herbs like mint, parsley, and dill.

Homemade butterfly feeders can be made in small jars like baby food jars. You can stuff it with cotton once you've drilled a hole in the middle of the lid. Afterwards, a mixture of 1:9 sugar and water should fill the jar. This means 1 part sugar and 9 parts water.

To attract the butterflies to it, decorate the jar with brightly colored bits of felt. The butterflies can suck the nectar out through the cotton in the lid after you've hung it somewhere in your garden.

In addition to providing plants that will feed the butterflies and their larva, you'll need to be sure your yard is hospitable in other ways. Shelter for their eggs is what butterflies would need. Providing a windbreak around your butterfly garden is important so that the butterflies can lay their eggs in a place where wind won't harm them.

They also need a mud puddle at which to congregate. It's important to provide your butterflies with at least one of this because they like to gather at the edges of the puddles. You should also be sure not to use too many pesticides around your garden.

The butterflies and their larva can be harmed or killed with these poisons. It doesn't take a lot of insecticide to kill these delicate creatures. Insecticides can kill delicate caterpillars before they have a chance to grow into butterflies.

Adult butterflies can be killed when they eat nectar that's been tainted with poison or when they light onto the plants to rest. Before spraying them on your plants, make sure that what you're trying to kill are damaging pests.

Some butterfly larva can look remarkably similar to common garden pests, and although butterfly larvae do feed on plants, they don't typically eat enough to do any real damage. Make sure your identification is correct before you spray.

Butterflies will also be attracted to your garden if you have brightly colored and sweet-smelling flowers. To attract different types of butterflies, plant a variety of annuals. Since different species are attracted to different types of flowers, having a good variety will ensure that you get the most different types of butterflies visiting your garden.

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment