Tips For Attracting Butterflies To Your Garden

Butterflies are beautiful to watch. They seem so delicate, with their tiny wings. Yet, they also have a whimsical feeling about them – a combination of their brilliant colours and the way they flit around, never going in a completely straight line. You may think that they come and go at random, but there are some things that you can do to attract more butterflies. Here are some simple tips that will bring you more joy and more butterflies.

Provide a Variety of Flowers

Carefully choose what flowers you plant, as this will influence how many butterflies come to your garden. Make sure as well, that these are flowers that you enjoy. The more you enjoy the flowers, the more you will want to sit and admire them. The more you are near your flowers, the more chances you will have to see the butterflies that visit your garden.

You should plant the most fragrant flowers, as these have the most nectar. Popular fragrant flowers include french lavender, sage, sweet alyssum and oregano. While the butterflies tend not to care about the colour of the flower, you probably do. Plant flowers with colours that are pleasing to you, so that you spend more time looking at the flowers and any butterflies that visit them.

As well, choose flowers that will bloom all season long, or a combination of plants that bloom at different times during the warm months of spring and summer. A spring favourite is the sweet pea, along with marigolds during late spring. This is soon followed by summer favourites, such as dianthus, purple coneflowers, shasta daisies and the black-eyed susan.

In addition, it is important to have plants that will support the butterfly larvae, such as snap dragons, milkweed, lupine and sunflowers. A butterfly starts off as a caterpillar. Once a caterpillar has reached adulthood, it is ready to transform into a butterfly. At this point, the adult caterpillar will form a cocoon in order to start the transformation process. While it is in the cocoon, the caterpillar is officially called butterfly larvae. After a short period of time, the cocoon will break open and a butterfly will emerge. A few hours later and the butterfly is ready to fly off into the world.

Provide Shelter and Protection

Butterflies need protection from the elements and shelter from the wind and rain. An easy way to provide shelter is to place small brush piles in your yard. Also, it is very important that you don't use pesticides. It will kill both butterfly larvae and adult butterflies very easily. Adult butterflies are even more susceptible to pesticides because it is in the water they drink and the insects that they eat.

Provide Water

While butterflies need water to drink, they will avoid places where the water is deep. They can easily become trapped and drown in deep water, so provide places where the water is shallow. Even drops of water, damp sand or plants that hold water on their leaves and petals can provide sufficient sources of water.

Provide Sunny Spots

Sunshine helps to warm the wings of butterflies so that they can fly. Make sure that you position both rocks and flowers throughout your garden so that at every part of the day, there are always some flowers and rocks that are in the sun. Rocks are just as important as flowers, since butterflies also need time to rest during the day. Rocks provide not only a place to rest, but an area to soak up the sun as well.