How to invite butterflies to your garden

Photo by Quincy Benton

Butterflies are darlings of the insect world. Like bugs in elaborate costumes, like beautiful flowers in flight, butterflies grace our gardens, spreading their papery wings, flitting here, poised there, all the while enchanting the onlooker with their elusive lightness of being.

Even the names of butterflies evoke the fanciful. With categories that include satyrs, wood-nymphs and grass-nymphs, Colorado counts among her native butterflies the Creamy Marble and the Lilac-bordered Copper, the Pearl Crescent and the Painted Lady, the Mourning Cloak, the Funeral Duskywing, the Silver-spotted Skipper.

For all their ethereal charm and delicateness, butterflies are tougher than their delicate appearance belies. Some fly as far as 2,000 miles in migration, soaring at altitudes of up to 7,000 feet above the surface of Earth. Except for the coldest environments where a lack of plant life can’t sustain caterpillars, butterflies inhabit most of the world’s ecosystems.

Yet many environments are becoming uninhabitable for the planet’s 20,000-some butterfly species. Consequently, their populations have taken a nose-dive, particularly in industrialized nations, where some butterflies are now extinct, and others have landed on the endangered species list.

You can help the butterfly population by planting a garden with these lovelies in mind. Habitat gardening has been on the upswing, largely due to a heightened awareness of how our changing environment. When we replace meadows and forests with parking lots and office buildings, apartment complexes and strip centers, we eliminate natural habitat. When we’re left with cement and metal, we lack the ideal living arrangement for insects. (This affects more species than just butterflies.)

The first rule in butterfly gardening is to eliminate the use of pesticides that kill insects, including butterflies. To survive andreproduce, butterflies need three elements: habitat that includes shelter, food plants for larvae, and nectar source for adults.

• Plantings should include a variety of species that bloom at different times of the season. Planting flowers in clusters makes it easier for butterflies to locate and access the nectar sources. And gardens most successful in attracting butterflies have blossoms of different colors and varying heights.

• Plants are important for both larvae food and nectar sources. One of the best annuals for attracting butterflies is zinnias. For perennials, choose butterfly bush, the buddleia. Both of these choices respond well to our climate and growing conditions.

• Some butterfly species are specific about plants they feed on, and adults will lay eggs on these plants to provide a food source for caterpillars. Dill, parsley and carrots, for example, attract black swallowtails. I plant dill every season for the swallowtails. Viburnum, sweet alyssum, hollyhock, and milkweed provide both nectar sources and act as host plants to butterflies laying eggs.

• Place bowls of fresh water bowls in the butterfly garden, then add a rock or two so the butterflies have a place to perch and bask in the sun. Or if you have a bird bath, add a rock so the butterflies will feel welcome, too.

• Butterflies also enjoy mud puddles. They find minerals and nutrients in there when they’re puddling. If the habitat doesn’t have natural occurring mud puddles, gardeners can add a shallow bowl of dirt kept moist. Another tip recommends occasionally adding a few grains of salt to the bowl to provide the sodium required by butterflies.

• In addition to plants, gardeners can set out rotting fruit, fruit juice. The rind of watermelon will attract butterflies. (But also other flies.)

• The butterfly garden also should include shelter for roosting and sleeping. When winds kick up, they need something to grab onto and a place to stay.
Habitat gardens can benefit butterflies substantially because they will quickly recolonize an area if what they need is there. Wildflowers can make a difference, too, in gardens because they can serve as nectar plants or host plants.

Butterfly gardeners are in good company: Winston Churchill’s motivation for planting gardens was to attract butterflies.