Butterfly Gardening

Find Which Butterflies Are In Our Area

In order to plan the ultimate butterfly garden, you first need to know which butterflies are in your area. There’s no point in creating the right habitat for a butterfly that never appears where you live. So your first order of business is to find out which butterflies you can expect. Florida Wildflowers and Butterflies Brochure make this part easy.

Many popular flower varieties are hybridized for features that are valued by the gardener, like disease resistance, flower size or color and bigger, longer blooms. Unfortunately much hybridization has reduced the production of nectar and pollen and sometimes leaves the resulting plant completely sterile and useless to bees and other pollinators. Native plants are usually best for native bees, and can be used in both wild areas and gardens. There are also many garden plants—particularly older, heirloom varieties of perennials and herbs—that are good sources of nectar or pollen. Together with native plants, these will make a garden attractive to both pollinators and people.

Add Host Plants for Caterpillars

Now that you know which butterflies live in your area, it’s time to start choosing which butterflies you can attract to your garden by planting the host plant for that butterfly.

Yes, adult butterflies mostly feed on nectar, but if you want butterflies to stay in your garden as opposed to just passing through, you need to plant host plants. Each butterfly species is dependent on a specific plant, or a specific family of plants for the caterpillars to feed on.

. No butterfly garden is complete unless you add host plants for new generations of butterflies

A great resource http://www.fnps.org/plants/refinelist/Pasco

Add Nectar Plants

 Add plants that are needed to feed the adults.  Butterflies are attracted by sweet-, pungent- and acrid-smelling flowers that are orange, yellow, pink, purple and red. Plants with deep throated, drooping or enclosed flowers are unsuitable for nectar-gathering. Some of these, especially white flowers that are fragrant at night, may attract moths.

Avoid pesticide use.  There are other ways to get rid of the bugs that you do not want.  Included Essential Oils that can be used for gardening…. Eucalyptus Essential Oil is great to get for aphids or Neem Essential Oil.

A great resource http://www.fnps.org/plants/refinelist/Pasco