All gardens are different from one another and butterflies know this the most. No matter if you have a large garden or a small plot in the middle of the city, you can always turn it into a butterfly garden to add beautiful, lively scenery to your living place.
With that in mind, this post will provide you with all the basic information you need to start planning as well as how to make a butterfly garden.
What’s The Purpose Of The Butterfly Garden?
The reason why you want to make a butterfly garden must be taken into account because it will determine how you create it.
Do you want to make a habitat resource to help increase the butterfly population?
Or do you prefer it to be an island?
In some yards, butterflies can even go through their entire life cycle.
What Do You Need For A Butterfly Garden?
Host plants: One of the most important things in a butterfly garden is host plants, where adults will lay eggs and their caterpillars forage.
Mud puddles: some types of butterflies don’t visit flowers often. Instead, they like mud better, as well as rotting fruit or sap.
Overwintering habitat: many butterflies and caterpillars overwinter, so you should consider not raking leaves in order to give them nursery.
Flowers: the garden should have flowers from spring to fall, meaning you need to include multiple native nectar plants to always have flowers over a few months.
Sunshine: there must be sunny spots in your garden as well.
Common Types Of Butterfly And Their Caterpillar Food Plants
In this section, I would like to introduce a list of common butterflies in nature and the types of plants their caterpillars feed on.
Black swallowtail: these butterflies eat plants belonging to the parsley family such as carrot, parsley, dill, and parsnip.
Tiger swallowtail: they eat birch, cherry, and aspen.
Spicebush swallowtail: they eat sassafras and spicebush.
Common snout butterfly: this type eats hackberry.
Buckeye: these butterflies eat gerardia, plantains, snapdragons, toadflax, loosestrife, and false.
Idalia fritillary and great spangled: these species eat violets.
Red admiral: these ones eat false nettle and nettles.
Painted lady: these butterflies eat thistles.
Hackberry butterflies: they eat hackberry exclusively.
Red-spotted purple and viceroy: these butterflies eat cherries, plums, poplars, pussy willow, black willow, among other types of willow.
Common Flowers For A Butterfly Garden
In addition to host plants, you also need flowers in your butterfly garden as I stated, and here are the most common types of flowers to include.
Butterfly Bush, also known as Buddleia: these large shrubs grow fast and are irresistible to butterflies. They are easy to care for but can be invasive.
This plant is suitable to grow in cottage gardens, perennial borders, or island beds that prevent it from running wild.
Phlox: this type produces a blanket of flowers during summer.
Coneflower: this is among the best flowers to attract butterflies. It also gives your garden a flashy color touch to the entire landscape throughout the summer. This type of flower can withstand the harsh winter and is suitable for rain gardens.
Lantana: this type attracts butterflies well and tolerates heat. It’s also easy to care for. Lantana is a great low hedge as well as an accent shrub for your garden.
Bluestar: this flowering plant can be 2-3 feet tall, featuring star-shaped flowers that bloom in spring. It performs the best in partly shape with loamy, moist, well-drained soil. It can also tolerate full sun if you provide enough moisture for it.
Pot Marigolds: these blooms can last for 8 weeks in summer and they grow quickly.
Black-Eyed Susan: this is among the first wildflowers to become domesticated. It adds a visual delight to your garden with its yellow flower head and black centers.
Blazing Star Flowers: these are purplish pink spikes that can be one to three feet tall, blooming in late June. They are ideal to attract butterflies.
Heliotrope: this flower comes with a pungent, sweet scent that’s similar to cherry pie. It’s large but still compact and attractive with a royal purple color.
How To Make A Butterfly Garden
Now that you have prepared all the needed materials, follow these steps to create a butterfly garden.
Step 1: Choose the location for the garden
The site of the garden must have some sunlight while being sheltered from the wind.
Step 2: Add some rocks
You should add 1 or 2 wide, flat rocks in an area exposed to the sun so that butterflies can bask in cool mornings.
Step 3: Add water supply
Butterflies can’t drink from open water, so you should include a container filled with water, like a birdbath, along with wet sand so they can drink safely.
Step 4: Add plants
The last step of this process is adding nectar plants as well as food plants for caterpillars.
Keep in mind that different butterflies feed on different flowers and different types of caterpillars feed on different plants, so make your choices based on the butterflies you target.
Conclusion
So, in this post, I provided you with information about a butterfly garden, including what you need to create one, the common types of plants and flowers to include, as well as how to make a butterfly garden. I hope that you will be able to make a beautiful butterfly garden of your own easily and quickly.
