What is butterfly gardening?
Simply put butterfly gardening is the art of growing flowers and plants that will attract these colorful and dainty creatures to your garden. Delight your family and visitors with beautiful butterflies.
The design of your butterfly garden is of course a matter of personal preference. But some typical points to consider is the size of your garden and the types of flowers and plants you want to grow. Pick a style of garden that appeals to you, but ensure it also contains the plants and flowers that appeal to the butterflies you wish to attract.
It is important to find out which plants and flowers will attract the species of butterflies. that live in your area. This information can be found at the local library or of course online.
To create the kind of environment that these beautiful creatures find attractive, you will also need a water source. A birdbath will look attractive and keep the butterflies up off the ground, away from stray cats or mischievous dogs. A shallow dish on a post or hung in a tree will do just as well.
When planting your butterfly garden be careful how you coordinate the colors you choose for your flowerbeds. Although butterflies do not care about your choice of color, you don’t want your garden to be a hodgepodge of unrelated colors and textures. Butterflies are attracted to those flowers that have nectar rather than pollen, like honeysuckle, milkweed, summer lilac, Valerian, daisies, Purple Coneflower, Yellow Sage, daylilies, and lavender.
Some people find it helpful to draw and color a layout of their butterfly gardening plan to see what the finished product would look like. Keep in mind that warm colors like red and orange are flashy and showy. These colors have a greater impact against a strong green background. Cool colors such as blue and purple are soothing and toned down and would work better with a white contrast to create the look of freshness and brightness.
