2torial #0765:
Learn2 Attract Butterflies (continued)

Take care of caterpillars' needs

If you want butterflies to stay in your garden, make it a life cycle residence for them by providing a caterpillar nursery. All you'll need are plants that are hospitable to butterfly eggs and larvae. These are leafy plants that can feed a caterpillar once it's hatched and also provide shelter for its cocoon, where it will develop into a butterfly. Common examples of these plants are aster, beard tongue, and common heliotrope. These particular plants also provide nectar that attracts butterflies. Once again, certain plants are favored by certain species, and a little research will inform you of the best plants for your local butterflies.

Keep in mind that in choosing these plants for butterflies, you're intending that they be eaten. If you can't stand the sight of chewed leaves in your garden, plant them off to the side a little, or camoflouge them among other flowering plants. Once again, because butterflies are very specific in their choice of plants where they lay eggs, you won't need to worry about caterpillars eating the other plants in your garden. In fact, butterflies are so particular that, once a female has found the plant favored by her species, she may spend hours selecting the specific leaf on which she'll lay her eggs.

The growth cycle of butterflies takes only a few weeks. So the journey--from egg to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to newly emergent butterfly--is a cycle you can easily watch unfold.

Watching butterflies emerge from cocoons is just one of the many pleasures offered by a butterfly garden. By planting one, you'll provide yourself and your family with bright, beautiful flowers; the constant company of butterflies sunning themselves or flying from plant to plant; and the knowledge that you're helping to support our environment and the insects that are an integral part of it.

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