Butterfly Gardening

A few years ago I began butterfly gardening, that is, intentionally growing plants that butterflies use as a host plan or a nectar source. Here is a list of butterfly host plants -use it to grow for butterflies that frequent your area- no sense in growing for non-natives that will never show up! A local cooperative extension office/site can help you identify native butterflies in your area.

It is very rewarding to see a monarch laying eggs on milkweed I have growing (I have 2 kinds of this weed, but the most popular with the local butteflies is the wild variety I got by snagging a few pods from the local bike trail). Milkweed is easy to grow and very drought tolerant. Monarchs lay eggs on the leaves, which turn into caterpillars that chomp on the plant until balling up and forming a chrysalis. They remain there for 10-14 days before emerging as a butterfly. In this blog entry, I show a pretty Yellow Tigertail on a purple coneflower. These are the high flyers of the butterfly world and I see them flying over my neighbor's 2-story home with ease. Most of the other butterflies stay closer to earth.

I also leave some carrots for the butterflies- the black swallowtail in particular. They will also visit the dill and rue I have growing.

Many times, I'll see a caterpillar and a few days later it's gone, no chrysalis or anything left behind. I have a feeling the birds might munch on them. I doubt they munch on the monarchs, since milkweed is poisonous, the caterpillar then becomes poisonous to the birds.

The downfalls of growing milkweed are few and not bad to deal with, I gladly grow it year after year for the monarchs. It can attract aphids. Like crazy. Cut off and toss the infested branches. It multiplies easily. If you don't want this, cut off the "bananas" or the pods before they dry out and burst open little umbrellas of seeds. The wild milkweed can get to be about 6 feet tall. After it blooms, I cut down the height to around 4 feet. The blooms attract a lot of bees, and smell great!

Most buttefly host plants are easy care, that is because they are often native to the area, and need to be self sufficient in order for the butterflies to be able to reproduce.

While adults are often captivated by the caterpillars and their story, butterfly gardening is a great learning experience for kids too! I have also heard that the Monarchs are in danger, numbers are dwindling etc. Searching the internet seems to provide a mixed review of this claim. Either way, I love to see these beautiful creatures in the garden year after year.