How to Make a Butterfly Garden

Butterflies are some of nature's most colorful creatures. With more than 28,000 different species of butterflies worldwide, you may have only caught a glimpse of a few species of butterflies in your lifetime. However, if you desire to see more, you may want to consider creating a butterfly garden. While these gardens require your care, you will be rewarded with regular visitors and you will be helping to preserve the habitat of these beautiful creatures.

Things You'll Need
Sand
Shallow dish
Flat rocks

Instructions

1. Research which butterflies are common to your region. You will want to tailor your garden for these butterflies.

2. Select the location for your garden in an area that receives plenty of sunshine, but is protected from the wind.

3. Cultivate your soil to prepare for planting and then disperse some flat rocks throughout your garden area. These rocks will provide a landing site for butterflies to sit and warm their wings.

4. Choose plants for your garden. Try to pick plants that will attract butterflies from your region. Keep in mind that you also want to select a wide variety of plants so that you will have flowers in bloom from late spring until fall.

5. Create a few small mud puddle areas in your garden. Butterflies like to land on the edge of these mud puddles. This can be done by filling a shallow dish or bucket with sand and then adding just enough water to keep the sand moist.

6. Remember to attract caterpillars by including plants that they like to eat. These plants will also draw the females to lay eggs in the garden.

Tips & Warnings

Contact your local university's cooperative extension for information on the species of butterflies that populate your region.

Add some salt and manure to your mud puddle to make it even more attractive to the butterfly. Be sure that if you do add salt and water that you use a plastic liner or bucket, as salt can harm your plants.

Add some variation to your garden by using some containers. Keep in mind that plants in containers may require more water during dry conditions.

Don't use pesticides in your butterfly garden. Pesticides will be harmful to butterflies. Instead, use predatory insects and natural pesticides such as insecticidal soaps.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_2050749_make-butterfly-garden.html

Home Butterfly Garden

Besides their beauty as they flit from flower to flower, butterflies are among the pollinators needed by more than 80 percent of the world's food-producing flowering plants. Some adult butterflies, such as Florida's state butterfly, the Zebra Longwing, eat pollen as well as nectar, making them extremely effective pollinators. The right mix of caterpillar and adult food sources attracts the widest variety of butterflies.

Non-Nectar Food Sources
A few butterfly species -- Swallowtails, Sulpurs and Satyrs -- also eat carrion, mud, manure and ash. At least one butterfly species, the harvester, eats aphids. Leaving meat scraps will attract unwanted predators and pest animals, but a boggy spot filled with small gravel and sand near your butterfly garden is sure to attract a few welcome visitors.

Nectar Sources
Most adult butterflies live on flower nectar. Plant flowers, fruits and vegetables that are native to your area to increase the number of native butterfly species visiting your garden. Consult a field guide for your region, or seek advice from a cooperative extension service or university agricultural department for lists of the plants that attract butterfly species in your area.

Among the plants that attract a variety of butterflies are asters, rudbeckia, daylilies, hibiscus and marigold. Bee balm and wild bergamot attract Painted Ladies, Cabbage Butterflies, Milbert's Tortoise Shell, Mourning Cloak and Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, while butterfly bush attracts the migratory Monarch.

Host Plants
Caterpillars eat leaves and stems of the host plants on which they hatch. For instance, the larval form of the Monarch butterfly eats milkweed. Caterpillars of another common US butterfly, the Tiger Swallowtail, eat yellow "tulip" poplar. Planting the right host plants for the larval stage of your favorite butterflies helps replace vital habitat in urban and suburban areas, where vast areas of formerly open field have been replaced by concrete and asphalt.

Resting Places
Trees, shrubs, log piles and rocks provide resting places and shield butterflies from wind. Butterflies will bask in sunny places when the temperature is under 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and roost overnight until midday.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/info_7999536_home-butterfly-garden.html