Potting Shed - butterflies - Bring butterflies to your back yard

University of Minnesota Extension Service Hennepin County

    As I write this, somewhere under the last blanket of snow are our gardens. For now we will have to imagine instead a blanket of flowers undulating in a gentle breeze, the nodding heads a riot of color, and a bevy of butterflies flitting from blossom to blossom. Right now it might be all in our heads but it can be in our gardens if we plan and plant for it.

    To create a garden of butterflies you must provide the butterflies’ three basic needs — food, shelter and water. Most species of northern butterflies feed on flower nectar as their primary source. This sugar rich food is provides the energy for flight. They prefer single large daisy-like flowers with accessible open centers. (Double layered blossoms are mostly for show and have very little nectar.)  They are especially attracted to purples and yellows, and flowers of similar colors grouped together please both the butterflies and the gardener. It is important to provide a wide variety of flowers throughout the season. Coneflowers, zinnias, marigolds impatiens, phlox and sunflowers are excellent during the summer months when butterflies are most active. Lilacs and azaleas can supply food in the early spring, and asters, chrysanthemums and late sedums are good sources of food in the fall.

    Butterflies also need plants on which to lay their eggs and for the larvae to feed. Adult butterflies feed on a variety of flowers; their larvae are a little more particular. Most larvae feed on the leaves but some prefer the reproductive parts and seeds. The monarch caterpillar (larva) feeds primarily on milkweed, and black swallowtails on parsley. Violets provide food for Great Spangled larva; thistles for Painted Ladies. Some butterfly larvae prefer trees such as willow and ash; Tiger Swallowtail larva feed on birch and cherry leaves. If you truly want to provide for the complete life cycle of butterflies, you may have to put up with some less than perfect looking plants, some larva have very voracious appetites. And it is important that all the plants that provide food for both butterfly and larva remain pesticide free.

    Butterflies are delicate creatures and need protection from the wind to eat, mate and lay eggs. They need shade on hot days and this shelter can be provided by tall flowers, shrubs, evergreens or even fences and walls.

    Butterflies also need water but bird baths and ponds are too deep. Butterflies will be found on the wet edges of mud puddles or wet sandy areas. The butterflies need the salts and minerals that leach into the water from the soil in order to mate. This behavior is referred to as ‘puddling.’ You  can provide a ‘watering hole’ for your butterflies with a shallow dish of wet sand or simply keeping a wet muddy spot in the garden.

    It is not difficult to create the butterfly garden of our imaginations; it is just a matter of knowing what the life cycle needs of the butterfly are and providing what they need.