Growing a Butterfly Garden

Butterfly gardens are not only beautiful from a flower standpoint, but the fact that they attract butterflies is a major bonus! Delight your family and visitors with beautiful butterflies, but be sure to create a safe habitat for them. If you own cats you might want to rethink your plans, because it would be a shame to attract these lovely insects to their death.

How you design your butterfly garden is a matter of personal preference. Typical points to consider are 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.

You can actually find ready made seeds for planting a butterfly garden, but if you prefer to pick and choose yourself, there are a few things you will want to consider. What types of butterflies live in your area. This information can be found at the local library, you’ll also want to create the kind of environment that they find attractive, you will also need water of some kind. A birdbath will look attractive and keep the butterflies up off the ground, away from stray cats or mischievous puppies. A shallow dish on a post or hung in a tree will do just as well.

Butterflies are attracted to those flowers that have nectar rather than pollen, like honeysuckle, milkweed, summer lilac, Valerian, daisies, Purple Coneflower, Yellow Sage, day lilies and lavender.

Planning a color a layout for your butterfly garden is the best way 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.