Plant Choice - Attracting Butterflies To Your Yard And Gardens
by John Yazo
Creating a butterfly garden as a part of your landscape can be a learning and at the same time a very rewarding experience. These colorful and carefree insects are a beneficial insect, along with being a beautiful site to enjoy watching in your gardens. Creating a habitat that will suite there needs requires a little research and planning, not all species have the same needs or desires.
Your choice of plants can be the key to having a successful butterfly garden you are looking for, or one that attracts other wildlife that you didn't plan on. I'm not saying this is totally a bad thing, experimenting with different plant life can give you results you haven't planned on and they can be good ones. Plants are the key source of food and shelter for butterflies, and as I stated before,not all species have the same desires or needs. Researching the species that you want to attract, and finding out what host plant or plants will attract them is very important, like milkweed for the Monarch butterfly. There are many ways to research this information, the best would be to contact the local county extension service for your area.
Another way to learn what plants will do best is to watch the surrounding area and see what native plant life that the desired species you are interested in is attracted too. Butterflies love wildflowers, creating a wildlife garden with native plants can be a garden that is very rewarding, along with being easy to maintain. When watching how the butterfly is attracted to certain plants, notice that they need a surface to land on a plant, this is a very important feature for the garden you are designing.
Native plants are an important part of the ecosystem, just as butterflies are. Removing a plant from it's existing location to plant in your garden is only harming the natural environment it is growing in and you are taking a chance of the plant not surviving in the new location you are going to plant it in. Contact your local extension service or talk to local garden centers to find a supplier of native plants in your area and purchase the plants that you need. The reason that certain spices of butterflies are on a decline is because of the lose of the natural habitat they need to survive and digging up native plant life is only add to this growing problem.
If you would like to comment on this website or have any suggestions please feel free to contact us
