Butterfly Gardening and How to Get Them into Your Garden

 BUTTERFLY GARDENING

Part 1: First Things First-what plants and how do they know which to land on?

Are you bemoaning the lack of butterflies in your garden?

Would you love to have more butterflies visit your garden, no matter how small or big it is?
Did you know that butterflies look for specific food plants or that they have a preferred temperature to flit about in?

The Monarch butterfly (pictured below)  was in my garden on buddleia bush 'Black Knight'  

Butterflies have a preferred range of plants so it pays to know what butterflies you have in your area and what plants they might like to feed on.

Monarch Butterfly on Buddleja ' Black Knight photo M Cannon

Steve mentions a good read  on the subject of butterflies is a book co-authored by Helen Schwencke, 

Create More Butterflies: a guide to 48 butterflies and their host-plants for south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.

Some plant suggestions to get those winged beauties into your garden are:

• Native senna cultivars are high on the list of plants that attract butterflies.
• Blunt-leaf Senna there (Senna gaudichaudii), but there’s also the corky milk vine (Secamone elliptica) and emu foot, (Cullen tenax) a trailing native plea vine.
• Think also about the native finger lime, great for container planting.
• A lot of native butterflies will be drawn to your garden if you have the right flowers for them at the right time of the year.

The further you go south, the butterfly visits will be more seasonal.

• Migrating butterflies are driven by the season's, wind direction and amount of rainfall.

Their preferred temperature range is between 23-27 degrees Centigrade.

How  do they find what they need?

The  antenna (mainly on males) is used to detect what food is available and if other male butterflies are present.

Females, however, can also use their feet. Chemoreceptors on their legs help them to choose their food plants.

Let’s find out more
I'm talking with  Steve McGrane, horticulturist, ecological agriculturist and garden writer.

Butterfly Gardening

 part 2:

So you've listened to part 1 where we talked about what plants butterflies prefer, and in particular, what type of plants the caterpillars of these butterflies like to eat.

Butterfly House Blenheim Palace, England, photo M Cannon



• But what else do butterflies like and what should you be wary of using in your garden if you want to keep those butterflies and bees coming to visit?

What do butterflies need to survive?

WATER: Butterflies are like bees, they don't like to land on a large body of water. They want to land where their mouthpieces can take up the water. A dish of water with a stone in it will provide their water needs.

SHADE: When they're eating or laying eggs, butterflies prefer semi-shade, one of the  reasons is that they camouflage themselves better.

FOOD FOR CATERPILLARS: Don't go overboard with worry about a few eaten leaves on your citrus,, or other plants because of the odd caterpillar here and there.  Remember, that caterpillar on your citrus or some other plant, may not be doing as much damage as you think. Not all caterpillars are as destructive as say the white cabbage moth caterpillar. Identify it first, then decide to leave it alone or feed it to the chooks.

• DON'T USE PESTICIDES, THESE ARE HARMFUL TO ALL BUTTERFLIES

Remember, the butterfly lifecycle is quite short, a mere two weeks before they pupate.

Butterflies pupating, butterfly house, Blenheim Palace, England. photo M Cannon

PLAY: Butterfly gardening pt 2_17thFebruary 2021

Let’s find out more
I'm talking with  Steve McGrane, horticulturist, ecological agriculturist and garden writer.

If you have any questions either for me or for Steve you can email us Realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2rrr, PO Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675.