Attract Butterflies



Beautiful Butterfly? orange butterfly in the rain garden

Why should you attract butterflies? Well, because they're beautiful, like watching a flash of rainbow floating delicately through the air amongst the spray of color in your garden. To many of us they are delightful and whimsical and enrich our lives, helping us to forget the day to day grind. They sooth our minds and relax the tension, much like watching fish. Even hospitals have begun to recognise the stress eazing nature of watching butterflies and begun putting butterfly gardens on their grounds.

Why Butterfly?

Beauty aside, there are other reasons to attract butterflies to your garden. Butterflies are a great pollinator of wildflowers, that translates into seed, which means more flowers for your garden. So how do you go about attracting butterflies. Well, first you plant some wildflowers. (Wait, we already did that) Butterflies are especially attracted to purple, red and yellow and prefer a broad landing pad. Flowers that will attract butterflies are any that grow in a cluster like butterfly bushes or are flat like daisies. No worries, there are plenty of these types of flowers in your garden. BUT, as with birds, butterflies will eventually leave your garden to look for water or a place to roost. There is no point in this. Butterflies can not drink from a standard birdbath. They must have a shallow puddle. You can create this by filling a shallow saucer with sand and keeping it moist to the point where there is a small puddle. Decorate them with shells or marbles and pebbles for the butterflies to land on. Butterflies are also attracted to rotten fruit and manure, which can be mixed with the sand that is in your butterfly waterer.

Hot Summer Shade

Butterflies love the sunlight that will fill your garden, but the time will come in high summer when it will grow too hot for them. At this time they will seek shade, either in nearby bushes or vines. Keep them from overheating with a butterfly house. As with bird houses, butterfly houses come in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors to fit your taste. Of course the butterflies won't care about this, but they will enjoy the relief from the coming summer heat. Yardiac has a few delightful houses that will attract butterflies and keep them. Heck they even have a butterfly feeder for when your flowers aren't in full bloom. Look for these things under "For The Birds".

Glorious Butterfly - Step by step instructions for raising Monarch Butterflies. Create a Butterfly garden using nectar plants and host plants. Butterflies for kids at home and school.

Learn to Attract butterflies of all shape, size and color in to you garden.

Grey Large Butterfly House