A Wing and a Prayer: Create a Heavenly Home for Butterflies
Fill your garden with the beauty of butterflies, while lending a helping hand to an endangered creature
While the noisy busy bee is getting all the attention as a vital but vanishing link in the food chain, spare a thought for the soft-spoken butterfly. Poetically, butterflies have been called ‘flying flowers’; environmentally, they are essential to the wellbeing of the planet. Here’s how to attract these bright, elusive and useful souls into your garden.
The role of the butterfly
For earth-bound humans, observing the exquisite grace of butterflies can bring immense pleasure. All that apparently aimless flitting, floating and sun-basking is also strengthening the biodiversity of your garden, your region and ultimately the planet. Butterflies are effective pollinators and a crucial part of the food chain, providing sustenance for other garden creatures, which in turn sustain larger life forms.
For earth-bound humans, observing the exquisite grace of butterflies can bring immense pleasure. All that apparently aimless flitting, floating and sun-basking is also strengthening the biodiversity of your garden, your region and ultimately the planet. Butterflies are effective pollinators and a crucial part of the food chain, providing sustenance for other garden creatures, which in turn sustain larger life forms.
The butterfly effect
Butterflies are also vital indicators of the health of our environment. They react swiftly to the smallest changes in conditions and a decline in numbers is an early warning sign of an ecosystem out of balance.
The monarch or wanderer butterfly (Danaus plexippus) pictured above is now on the World Wildlife Fund’s endangered species list, while scores of other less well-known species are dwindling dramatically.
Butterflies are also vital indicators of the health of our environment. They react swiftly to the smallest changes in conditions and a decline in numbers is an early warning sign of an ecosystem out of balance.
The monarch or wanderer butterfly (Danaus plexippus) pictured above is now on the World Wildlife Fund’s endangered species list, while scores of other less well-known species are dwindling dramatically.
Invite the locals
Before setting up your butterfly haven, find out which of the 400 species of Australian native butterflies like to set up house in your region. There are many websites with this information. Butterflies are complex feeders and no one plant set satisfies every species. List the ones you want in your garden and learn which native plants they are attracted to. A nursery can advise on natives to grow in your area.
12 Ways to Create a Wildlife Haven in a Small Garden
Before setting up your butterfly haven, find out which of the 400 species of Australian native butterflies like to set up house in your region. There are many websites with this information. Butterflies are complex feeders and no one plant set satisfies every species. List the ones you want in your garden and learn which native plants they are attracted to. A nursery can advise on natives to grow in your area.
12 Ways to Create a Wildlife Haven in a Small Garden
Location, location, location
Take a turn around your garden to find a suitable site. It should be quiet, sunny and wind-free, with a nearby shady spot for cooling off in the hottest part of the day.
In rural areas, one of the best habitats is a sheltered, untended spot with established native vegetation, which can be augmented with other butterfly-attracting plants.
Take a turn around your garden to find a suitable site. It should be quiet, sunny and wind-free, with a nearby shady spot for cooling off in the hottest part of the day.
In rural areas, one of the best habitats is a sheltered, untended spot with established native vegetation, which can be augmented with other butterfly-attracting plants.
Size doesn’t matter. A window box, planter pots or tubs on a balcony will do the job just as well as a big garden.
Butterflies love to sunbathe first thing to warm up, so a spot with early morning sun is ideal. Provide flat rocks or stones for sunning, landing and courting.
Butterflies love to sunbathe first thing to warm up, so a spot with early morning sun is ideal. Provide flat rocks or stones for sunning, landing and courting.
Down and dirty
Butterflies relish a mud bath, not so much for moisture, but to absorb soil minerals and salts. Scoop out a few shallow hollows in dirt and fill with water occasionally. Butterflies will suck up the moisture and indulge in appreciative ‘puddling’ rituals.
Butterflies feed with a straw-like coil that can only access fluids, and get most of their water from semi-liquid flower nectar. Provide an additional water source near nectar-rich plants and somewhere to land. A shallow dish with a bed of pebbles or sand hung from a feeding tree or on a rock or tree stump will do.
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Butterflies relish a mud bath, not so much for moisture, but to absorb soil minerals and salts. Scoop out a few shallow hollows in dirt and fill with water occasionally. Butterflies will suck up the moisture and indulge in appreciative ‘puddling’ rituals.
Butterflies feed with a straw-like coil that can only access fluids, and get most of their water from semi-liquid flower nectar. Provide an additional water source near nectar-rich plants and somewhere to land. A shallow dish with a bed of pebbles or sand hung from a feeding tree or on a rock or tree stump will do.
Browse more gorgeous gardens
Bed and breakfast
Butterflies need two types of plants and your garden should supply both. The initial stage in the butterfly’s life cycle, the egg, is laid by the female butterfly on the underside of the leaves of a specific host plant. Like any good mother, she knows exactly what the leaf-eating hatched caterpillar likes to munch on and will lay her eggs only on that host.
Find out the host plants for the caterpillar stage of the butterflies you want to attract. This chart from the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House lists several butterflies and their host plants.
Butterflies need two types of plants and your garden should supply both. The initial stage in the butterfly’s life cycle, the egg, is laid by the female butterfly on the underside of the leaves of a specific host plant. Like any good mother, she knows exactly what the leaf-eating hatched caterpillar likes to munch on and will lay her eggs only on that host.
Find out the host plants for the caterpillar stage of the butterflies you want to attract. This chart from the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House lists several butterflies and their host plants.
“The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.”
– George Carlin, comedian and author
The egg hatches a caterpillar, with a face only a mother could love. Once hatched, caterpillars eat the host plant voraciously until they reach full size, digest themselves and form a chrysalis, where the butterfly grows until ready to emerge.
Some gardeners blanch at the thought of encouraging caterpillars. In the scheme of things, they eat relatively little and are a sign of butterflies to come.
– George Carlin, comedian and author
The egg hatches a caterpillar, with a face only a mother could love. Once hatched, caterpillars eat the host plant voraciously until they reach full size, digest themselves and form a chrysalis, where the butterfly grows until ready to emerge.
Some gardeners blanch at the thought of encouraging caterpillars. In the scheme of things, they eat relatively little and are a sign of butterflies to come.
The second vegetation type is a nectar source so butterflies can feed on sugar-rich nectar, take in energy, breed and lay eggs. Highly visible colours in blocks and massed plantings of blue, yellow and red lure feeding butterflies, according to Sustainable Gardening Australia (SGA). Learn about suitable nectar plants for different species from an online Australian butterfly site or library.
Butterflies are fickle creatures. They may flit through your life one day and be gone to greener pastures the next. Make your garden so abundantly seductive all year round they’ll never want to leave. Plant colourful nectar sources that flower sequentially and lots of caterpillar host vegetation for a perpetual banquet of nutrition and shelter.
Going native
SGA recommends planting mainly local native species and to avoid potentially invasive exotics, which will only spread further with increased butterfly visits.
A well-loved native strongly attractive to butterflies, bees and birds is the kangaroo paw (Anigozanthos). Once hard to grow in humid coastal gardens, there are now many hybrids that tolerate a variety of climatic conditions.
Read about more plants for pollinators
SGA recommends planting mainly local native species and to avoid potentially invasive exotics, which will only spread further with increased butterfly visits.
A well-loved native strongly attractive to butterflies, bees and birds is the kangaroo paw (Anigozanthos). Once hard to grow in humid coastal gardens, there are now many hybrids that tolerate a variety of climatic conditions.
Read about more plants for pollinators
Although your research may specify plants for the butterfly species you want to attract, some natives found over a range of climates are common favourites. These include wattles (Acacia sp.), tea trees (Leptospermum sp.), bottlebrush (Callistemon sp.), native violet (Viola hederacea) and banksia varieties.
Not just any flower
The butterfly feeding apparatus can’t reach into deep-throated or multi-petalled flowers, so look for flatter flowers, such as daisies, and flowers that cluster in short tubular blooms. Double cultivars, such as some roses and dahlias, have too many petals to probe through and often lack nectar in any case – stick with single petalled varieties.
Tip: Flat flower types are also suitable for attracting bees.
The butterfly feeding apparatus can’t reach into deep-throated or multi-petalled flowers, so look for flatter flowers, such as daisies, and flowers that cluster in short tubular blooms. Double cultivars, such as some roses and dahlias, have too many petals to probe through and often lack nectar in any case – stick with single petalled varieties.
Tip: Flat flower types are also suitable for attracting bees.
Killer chemicals
Toxic chemical pesticides are anathema to a successful butterfly garden. Butterflies are collateral damage when other pesky insects are being chemically treated. Severely restrict chemicals, especially sprays, or better still avoid them. The annoyance of a few nibbled leaves could reward you with an engrossing aerial show on your very doorstep.
Toxic chemical pesticides are anathema to a successful butterfly garden. Butterflies are collateral damage when other pesky insects are being chemically treated. Severely restrict chemicals, especially sprays, or better still avoid them. The annoyance of a few nibbled leaves could reward you with an engrossing aerial show on your very doorstep.
Butterflies for kids
Encourage your kids to join the butterfly fan club. Eric Carle’s award-winning book The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a great place to kickstart learning about the butterfly life cycle. Arrange activities such as observing and painting pictures of butterflies, making wings from paper and wire, role playing, face painting, butterfly and caterpillar hunts in local parks, and visits to butterfly houses in zoos.
Tell us
Are butterflies guests in your garden? How have you attracted them? Share your comments and join the conversation.
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Encourage your kids to join the butterfly fan club. Eric Carle’s award-winning book The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a great place to kickstart learning about the butterfly life cycle. Arrange activities such as observing and painting pictures of butterflies, making wings from paper and wire, role playing, face painting, butterfly and caterpillar hunts in local parks, and visits to butterfly houses in zoos.
Tell us
Are butterflies guests in your garden? How have you attracted them? Share your comments and join the conversation.
More
Browse landscape architects
“O Earth, O Sky, you are mine to roam
In liberty.
I am the soul and I have no home,
Take care of me.”
– Alice Archer Sewall James, The Butterfly
Stories about the decline of our insect populations make dismal reading. More cheering news is that we can help in small ways to stop the loss by being thoughtful gardeners. As peaceful and beautiful as a garden may be, it also has the potential to attract and support vulnerable life forms.
Many butterflies are being evicted from their natural homes by land clearance, monoculture cropping, invasion of exotic predators and plants, and indiscriminate pesticide use. With these tips, give them somewhere to live, love and be happy.