How to Plan a Butterfly Host Garden
Set the table for a butterfly host garden by supplying plenty of food for caterpillars. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Do your homework. Read a book or do research online to find out about the different varieties of butterflies that visit or live in your area.
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Learn what plants they eat in their larval stage; the caterpillars of a given species typically eat only a few or even just one type of plant.
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Determine the growing requirements for those plants, such as when to plant, and their soil, sun, water and fertilizer needs.
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Purchase the seeds or plants and grow them to encourage female butterflies to lay eggs on the plants that the growing caterpillars will eat. Examples of caterpillar-friendly plants include milkweed (asclepias) for monarchs; rue and the variously named hop-ash/potato-chip/wafer-ash tree for giant swallowtails; carrot, parsley, fennel and dill for black swallowtails; candlestick bush, a senna species, for cloudless sulfurs; compositae daisies for painted ladies; pipevines (aristolochia) for pipevine swallowtails; willow, cherry, peach and cottonwood trees for the tiger swallowtail.
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Resolve that you won't be upset by a few weeks of damaged, even ravaged, foliage that will result as the caterpillars feed. Even organic controls can kill the caterpillars.
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Tips & Warnings
If you don't know which butterflies visit or live in your area, check with lepidopterist societies, museums, garden clubs, universities, county extension services and wildlife preserves in your area.
Rue can cause a skin reaction. Situate it so that there won't be accidental contact.
