Butterfly Gardeners
Are you looking to attract butterflies to your gardens? If you are just starting a new garden there are various types of flowers, plants, shrubs and even trees that are going to attract butterflies to your gardens and landscape.

Posted Friday, April 21, 2006

The first thing you need to realize is that butterflies have different life stages. These stages consist of the egg, the caterpillar, the pupa, and then the adult butterfly. It may seem sad but the life of a butterfly is anywhere from just one month to a few months long. At the different stages of life, butterflies need various things, so providing a variety of features in your garden will keep butterflies available for your enjoyment often.

What are some of the most common butterflies?

Alfalfa Butterfly American Painted Lady Cabbage Butterfly Checkered Skipper Clouded Sulphur Eastern Black Swallowtail Eastern Tailed Blue Gray Hairstreak Great Spangled Fritillary Monarch Painted Lady Red Admiral Spring Azure Tawny-edged Skipper Tiger Swallowtail

To attract butterflies to your gardens, include rocks, bricks, and stones in your landscape so the butterfly pupa stage can occur without problem. Protection from wind and rain is what these will provide. For the caterpillar, it will provide an area to bask in the sun.

Various types of plants are going to attract butterflies. You can use these plants inside or outside the greenhouse, or in detailing the surroundings of your greenhouse. A few of the most comfortable flowers for the butterfly are ones with large heads, the flowers that are double headed, or that are clustered together to make flower hopping for the butterfly easier.

What are some of the plants that will attract butterflies to your gardens? Broccoli, Cabbage, Common Sunflower, Lamb's Quarters, Snapdragon, Thistle, Parsley, Sweet Fennel, Wild Plum, Chokecherry, Aster, Hollyhock, Mallow, Butterfly Weed. There are so many that you are sure to find plants, flowers, and shrubs that are going to enhance your gardens and promote butterfly populations.

Plants, flowers, and shrubs are going to provide nectar needed for butterflies to thrive and lay eggs. Here are a few more plants that you can start in the greenhouse and then transplant to your gardens to bring butterflies if you like: Ageratum, Cosmos, Fetid Marigold, Globe Candytuft, Gomphrena, Heliotrope, Marigold, Nasturtium, Nicotiana, Petunia, Scabiosa, Verbena, Zinnia, Dame's Rocket, Queen Anne's Lace, Catnip, Chives, Dill, Lavender, Cinquefoil, Lilac, Mock Orange, Privet, Spirea, Viburnum.