More About Butterfly Gardening

Butterfly Beauty

When creating a butterfly garden, the possibilities of what to include in your butterfly garden design are endless. Below are just a few suggestions to help get you started. These ideas are designed to spark the creative process of your mind and get you started on your way to creating a lovely butterfly garden.

Before you even begin your butterfly garden, find out which species of butterflies are in your area. You can do this by taking an exploratory hike around your location with a butterfly identification book. This may take a little extra time and effort, but the results will be well worth it. After you have compiled your list of local butterfly species, be sure to write down in your butterfly garden plan what these particular species of butterflies use for nectar and food plants.

Be sure that your garden is in a location that provides at least six hours of sunlight per day. Butterflies are cold-blooded creatures and therefore do better where they are warm and sheltered.

Also, wind can be a butterfly’s worst enemy so be sure to have plenty of wind protection in your design. You can plant tall shrubs and other plants in order to create a wind break, but a location that avoids heavy winds is even better.

The best of all would be a butterfly garden placed on the sunny side of your home with windbreaks on both the west and east sides, or wherever the prevailing winds come from in your area. Try locating your garden close to a window so you can view the butterflies from indoors. Also, seating outside is a great way to admire these beautiful creatures.

If possible, you could excavate an area and put up a stone wall around it. This would create the ideal windbreak. Add gravel pathways around your garden to save walking in mud.

There are many creative ways for constructing a butterfly garden. Take your time to design a garden that you will enjoy and be proud of.