How to Make Butterfly Drinking Stations
Butterflies are insects that are not only beautiful to look at, but also beneficial to your garden because of their pollinating abilities. These attractive insects have large, scaly wings, belong to the Lepidoptera order and can fly up to 30 miles per hour. Butterflies usually feed on the nectar of flowers and some fruits. A butterfly has a long, tube-like flexible tongue called a proboscis, through which it ingests water and food. To attract these beneficial insects to your garden, make them drinking stations where they can come and safely hydrate themselves.
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Instructions
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Soak rocks or decorative river stones in water overnight to allow them to absorb and hold plenty of moisture. Decorative river stones provide a more attractive appearance for your finished butterfly drinking stations.
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Fill baking pans with a mixture of one part soil and one part sand to about 1/4 inch of the top of the rim of each pan. Avoid using clay-based soil as this will make the mixture heavy and hard, which is more difficult for a butterfly to probe with its proboscis.
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Place the water-soaked rocks in small, round formations throughout the pans, on top of the soil to provide the butterflies with small "islands" to stand on while they drink from the soil.
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Dig holes the length and width and just under the depth of each pan in your garden, relocating any sod or shrubbery to do so.
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Place the pans into the holes, making sure it each is slightly above the level of the ground.
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Pour fresh water into the pans until the soil feels like a moist sponge to the touch. Do not over-fill them.
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Plant butterfly-friendly flowers, such as sunflower, lavender, purple coneflower or other pollen and nectar-producing plants around the butterfly drinking stations to attract butterflies to the areas, recommend authors Kris and Rick Wetherbee of the book "Attracting Birds, Butterflies & Other Winged Wonders to Your Backyard."
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Tips & Warnings
Refresh the water in the drinking stations as needed to keep the soil moist, with a gentle spritz of a garden hose or pour the water into the pans using a cup.
Substitute clay or pottery saucers for the baking pans to make the butterfly drinking stations more decorative and allow them to retain moisture better. You can find these saucers, which usually go under clay plant pots, in a garden supply store.
You can also use a birdbath as the container for your butterfly drinking station instead of a pan or clay saucer.
After a heavy rain, carefully pour off the excess water from the drinking stations; butterflies will not step in water deeper than the size of their own feet, although the stones help to prevent this problem.
Butterfly drinking stations may also attract bees or wasps. Do not place them in your garden if you are allergic to the stings of these insects.
References
- Manage My Life: Plan and Grow a Butterfly Garden
- Attracting Butterflies & Hummingbirds to Your Backyard: Watch Your Garden Come Alive With Beauty on the Wing; Sally Roth
- Attracting Birds, Butterflies & Other Winged Wonders to Your Backyard; Kris Wetherbee & Rick Wetherbee
- Enchanted Learning: What is a Butterfly?
- Photo Credit Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
