Butterfly Gardens

Did You Know:  Breeding – When two insects mate for the purpose of reproduction, breeding can bring change as two different parents create a new type of baby bug.

One of the most rewarding gardens you can grow is a butterfly garden, a garden that attracts butterflies to come and live there and to raise their butterfly families.  One way to make a butterfly garden is to plant dill, an herb that attracts monarch caterpillars and butterflies.

When the mother monarch butterfly finds good-tasting dill plants, she will lay her eggs there.  When the little caterpillars hatch from the egs, they’ll have plenty of food to eat as they grow to eventually become adult butterflies.  Another plant that will attract monarchs is the milkwee, which sets a good background for butterfly breeding.

Here’s a list of some other things to plant and which bugs like it:

• cabbage – cabbage butterfly
• clover – the wooly bear caterpillar; tiger moth
• parsley – black swallowtail
• dogwood – common blue butterfly
• trumpet vine – plebeian sphinx moth
• cosmos – hummingbird moth
• larkspur – all different types of butterflies

Many of the flowers that you plant for the butterflies will also attract moths.  And although they seem a lot alike, they are different in four ways.

Differences Between Moths and Butterflies

1. Butterflies hold their wings together while at rest; moths lay them falt.
2. Butterfly antennae have bumps on the ends; moth antennae are thick and feathery.
3. Butterflies prefer the daytime; moths come out at night.
4. Butterfly bodies are thin; moth bodies are usually thick.

Here’s a recipe to enjoy from the dill you planted for your butterflies!

Dilly Dip

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon dried dill (finely diced)
• 1/2 teaspoon of onion powder
• 1 dash of seasoning salt

Stir and serve with crackers or chips or vegetables.

Variations:  Try adding cream cheese; olives, sandwich spread, or pineapple.

19 Plants That Attract Butterflies

“Butterflies need food and places to lay their eggs.  Help them help in turn feed our plants with pollenation!  Plant these plants to give our fluttery winged friends a helping “wing” to fly!”

The monarch butterfly is sometimes called the “milkweed butterfly” because its larvae eat the plant.  In fact, milkweed is the only thing the larvae can eat!  If you’d like to attract monarchs to your garden, you can try planting milkweed (if you live in the right area).

Adult female Monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves.  These eggs hatch, depending on temperature, in three to twelve days.  After awhile, the caterpillars attach themselves head down to a convenient twig, they shed their outer skin and begin the transformation into a pupa (or chrysalis), a process which is completed in a matter of hours.

The pupa resembles a waxy, jade vase and becomes increasingly transparent as the process progresses.  The caterpillar completes the miraculous transformation into a beautiful adult butterfly in about two weeks.

The butterfly finally emerges from the now transparent chrysalis.

It inflates its wings with a pool of blood it has stored in its abdomen.  When this is done, the monarch expels any excess fluid and rests.

The butterfly waits until its wings stiffen and dry before it flies away to start the cycle of life all over again.

Eastern populations winter in Florida, along the coast of Texas, and in Mexico, and return to the north in spring.  Monarch butterflies follow the same migration patterns every year.  During migration, huge numbers of butterflies can be seen gathered together.

Nope, those orange things to the left are not autumn leaves… they’re hundreds of Monarch butterflies!

Most predators have learned that the monarch butterfly makes a poisonous snack.  The toxins from the Monarch’s milkweed diet have given the butterfly this defense.  In either the caterpillar or butterfly stage the Monarch needs no camouflage because it takes in toxins from the milkweed and is poisonous to predators.  Many animals advertise their poisonous nature with bright colors… just like the monarch!

19 Plants That Butterflies Love

1. Aster
2. Borage
3. Butterfly weed
4. Chives
5. Coreopsis
6. Day Lily
7. False Indigo
8. Heliotrope
9. Hollyhock
10. Lantana
11. Marigold
12. Nasturtium
13. Parsley
14. Pearly Everlasting
15. Purple Cornflower
16. Sedum
17. Sweet Alyssum
18. White Clover
19. Wild Bergamot
20. Milkweed

Help the Butterflies!  Enjoy them in your garden!

-Wings To Fly

Monarchs

Monarch (Danaus plexippus): For Food, they love:  Blunt-Leaf Milkweed, Antelope-Horns, Tropical Milkweed, Engelmann’sMilkweed, Swamp Milkweed, Slim Milkweed, Side-Cluster Milkweed,Slim-Leaf Milkweed, Butterfly-Weed, White-Flower Milkweed, Whorled Milkweed, Wand Milkweed, Green Milkweed, Sandvine, Green Milkweedvine.

Monarchs need milk weed.