May 31 2010
Creating A Butterfly Garden
A simple butterfly garden
Creating a butterfly garden is not difficult to do. Simply put your ideas down on paper, and put them into action. You will find that in no time you have created a beautiful butterfly garden that will bring you pleasure for years to come.
When you first start creating a butterfly garden, the possibilities of what features to include in your butterfly garden design can seem endless. That is not necessarily so,below are some helpful suggestions that will get you started on your way. They are designed to spark the creative process of your mind and give you a starting point to create your own lovely butterfly garden.
Before you can create your butterfly garden, it is most likely a good idea to find out the different kinds of butterflies that are in your area. You may want to consider taking an exploratory hike around your neighborhood with a butterfly guide book. This may take a little extra time and effort, but the results you get will be well worth the time spent.
After you have figured out all of the butterflies native to your area, you should be sure to write down in your butterfly garden plan what these particular species of butterflies like to use as nectar sources and which host plants they use for their caterpillars.
Be sure that your butterfly garden is in an area that will provide at least six hours of sunlight per day. Butterflies are cold-blooded creatures, and they will do much better someplace where they are warm and sheltered. Butterfly flowers also require at least six hours of direct sun each day.
Thw wind can destroy the delicate wings of a butterfly, so be sure to include plenty of wind protection in your design. If possible, you could excavate an area and build a stone wall around it. This would create the ideal windbreak for your butterflies. However, if you do not have the means you can plant some tall shrubs and other plants in order to create a wind break, but if you can find a location that is sheltered from heavy winds that would be even better.
The ideal site would be a butterfly garden placed on the sunny side of your home with windbreaks on both the west and east sides, or wherever the prevailing winds come from in your area.
You want to try and locate your garden close to a window so you can view the butterflies from indoors. The less foot traffic your butterfly garden receives the better. You may also want to provide comfortable seating outside too.
Make gravel pathways around your garden to save walking in mud. Gravel will also hold in the heat from the sun and give the butterflies a place to land and soak up the heat.
There are many creative ways for constructing a butterfly garden. So be sure to take your time to create a butterfly garden that you will enjoy and be proud of for many years to come. Creating a butterfly garden should not be a race, it should be a labor of love, one that will bring pleasure to you and all those who see it.
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