Let’s Build a Butterfly Garden!
Butterflies are amazing pollinators bringing not only functionality but also beauty to every garden they visit. Of course, their free-spirited approach means that they often will only be seen passing through your garden while on the hunt for the next best nectar producing plant. However, there are some things you can do to attract butterflies to your yard and have them hang out for longer periods of time.
Tips for Building a Butterfly Garden
One of the most fun and intentional things you can do is to transform your garden into a butterfly garden. There’s no secret recipe to do this, but here are a few tips that will ensure success in any climate, in any location:
- Make sure that adult butterflies have a food source all season long. Choose a diverse selection of flowering plants that will include individuals that will flower from as early in the season as possible to as late in the season as possible. You can start with a base of perennials and add in annuals to fill in periods with fewer blooms.
- Pro Tip: Don’t forget about trees! Early blooming willow and poplars can provide a great early season source of nectar for butterflies and bees alike.
- Make sure that baby butterflies (AKA caterpillars) have a food source. Do a little research and find out what plants the caterpillars of your favourite butterflies need to survive. By planting these foods for the caterpillars, you’ll transform your garden from a butterfly stopover to a butterfly main base!
- Make sure that butterflies have a place to overwinter. Many butterflies overwinter in their pupal (cocoon) or egg stages. When we tidy up our yards and remove leaf litter, branches and even dead plant shoots, we are often unintentionally throw out the butterflies with the yard debris! Let things lie in fall and postpone your yard cleanup in spring to give the butterflies a chance to wake up and get moving before you ship them out with the garbage.
With these three tips, any garden can become a butterfly sanctuary!