Butterflies to come to your Garden

 Butterflies to come to your Garden

Ditch the pesticides.

This doesn’t mean you can’t do pest control in your garden,

but certain pesticides, particularly malathion,

Sevin, and diazinon, will kill butterflies.

If you’re active with a neighborhood council or community garden, mention this to the members as well.

And why not take it a step further to help educate your community on safe pest control methods? 

Grow native plants Growing native plants in your garden is akin to supporting your local farmers markets.

It’s better for the planet, provides you with the easiest to care for crops, and it will support pollinaters like butterflies and other local fauna that have evolved with the local flora.

Keep the sun in mind. Even if you have just a small patch of land or a balcony, if it gets good sun, you could help support butterflies. There’s a reason we often associate butterflies with gorgeous sunny days; they typically only feed in full sun.

Plant the right colours.

Butterflies like bright colors.

Think red, yellow, orange, pink and purple.

And make sure the blossoms are flat-topped or have short flowering tubes.

Plant the right milkweed. Monarchs only eat from the milkweed plant. But did you know that there are many types of milkweed? If you plant the wrong one for your region, it might not do monarchs any good. 

Create butterfly spa. Okay, so you don’t need to invest in a hot tub or sauna (but if you want me to visit, you should), but butterflies do require a little R&R, so why not invite them to do it in your yard? They prefer to rest in full sun, so nice flat rocks, tables or chairs for them to sun in will bring these gorgeous creatures to your yard. They also love puddling, which is basically hanging out in damp sand or mud where they drink a little water and mineralize.

You can create specific puddling spots for the butterflies by filling shallow dishes or pans with sand and a bit of water and placing them in sunny spots in your yard.

Some plants that encourage those common butterflies:

• Acmon Blue – buckwheat, lupines, milkvetch
• American Painted Lady – cudweed, everlast
• Baird’s Swallowtail – dragon sagebrush
• Black Swallowtail – parsley, dill, fennel, common rue
• Coral Hairstreak – wild black cherry, American and chickasaw plum, black chokeberry
• Dun Skipper – sedges, grasses including purpletop
• Eastern Tiger Swallowtail – wild black cherry, ash, tulip tree, willow, sweetbay, basswood
• Giant Swallowtail – prickly ash, citrus, common rue, hoptree, gas plant, torchwood
• Gray Comma – gooseberry, azalea, elm
• Great Purple Hairstreak – mistletoe
• Gulf Fritillary – maypops, other passion vines
• Henry’s Elfin – redbud, dahoon and yaupon hollies, maple-leaved viburnum, blueberries
• Monarch – milkweeds
• Painted Lady (Cosmopolite) – thistles, mallows, nievitas, yellow fiddleneck
• Pygmy Blue – saltbush, lamb’s quarters, pigweed
• Red Admiral/White Admiral – wild cherries, black oaks, aspens, yellow and black birch
• Silver-Spotted Skipper – locusts, wisteria, other legumes
• Spicebush Swallowtail – sassafras, spicebush
• Sulphurs – clover, peas, vetch, alfalfa, asters
• Variegated Fritillary – passion flower, maypop, violets, stonecrop, purslane
• Viceroy – willows, cottonwood, aspen
• Western Tailed Blue – vetches, milkvetches
• Western Tiger Swallowtail – willow, plum, alder, sycamore, hoptree, ash
• Woodland Skipper – grasses
• Zebra Swallowtail – pawpaw