Planting a Butterfly Garden

Flying beauties and jewels of the sky are only two of the terms that can describe one of the planets most beautiful species, the butterfly. People have always held a great fascination with these gentle flying flowers because of their magnificent beauty and colors. The springtime is a perfect time to catch these dazzling creatures fluttering through the sky or just resting on a lovely flower.

Making a butterfly garden has wonderful advantages during this time of year. Many people are looking for new and exciting ways to start a garden or just spruce up their old one. Butterfly gardens are a great source of entertainment when you want to admire the beauties of the spring. It is very easy to attract these wonderful creatures to your garden with the proper planning and plants. You can start your very own butterfly garden this spring and craft a delightful spring show.

The first step to starting a butterfly garden is to understand why a butterfly may choose to visit a garden in the first place. Butterflies are looking for nectar and a host plant. Nectar is the food that adult butterflies need in order to survive and a host plant is a place where a female can lay her eggs and they also provide the food that the caterpillars will need. If you want to start a successful butterfly garden you will definitely need these two types of necessities.

Nectar plants are plants with flowers that produce a sweet fluid that many insects eat including the butterfly. Many butterflies prefer nectar plants that have pink, red, purple, yellow or orange flowers. Butterflies are more than likely to be attracted to plants that are a single color rather than a garden that has a variety of colors. Butterflies will want to land on the flowers in order to get nectar, so they prefer plants that either have clusters of short tubular flowers, or flowers with large and flat petals.