Monarch butterflies reared on a balcony
Everyone loves to see pretty butterflies
in their gardens and flying around wherever they live or travel to but sadly
very many species are dropping in numbers fast.
Habitat destruction, pesticides and herbicides, as well as Climate Change are
all taking their toll.
Fortunately many people who want to help
with the conservation of nature and to do their bit, are getting interested in
gardening for butterflies. This is a wonderful idea because these beautiful
insects need all the help they can get.
A lot of people think that having plenty
of colourful flowers and flowering trees and shrubs like the Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii) will help, and this is
true, up to a point. You see, whilst it is vitally important to provide
nectar-bearing flowers for the adult butterflies to get their food from, we
also need to provide food plants for the mother butterflies to lay their eggs
on. If this is done it can work very well because the butterflies that have
been attracted to your garden because of the flowers, will stick around to lay
their eggs if they can see the right food plants also growing there.
If the right plants are grown in
sufficient quantities you may well end up with an ongoing breeding population
of various types of butterfly in your own garden. In the UK, Europe, North
America and other countries where Stinging Nettles (Urtica dioica) grow, having a clump of this plant growing in your
garden is a wonderful help to the butterflies because many species have
caterpillars that feed on it. For
example, the Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais
urticae), Peacock (Inachis io)
and Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) butterflies
all use the Stinging Nettle as a food plant.
Red Admiral at rest
In countries where the Monarch Butterfly
(Danaus plexippus) lives these
magnificent insect can be attracted and encouraged to breed by simply planting
any of the many species of Asclepias that can be easily obtained by searching
on the Internet, or maybe from a garden centre near where you live. Here in Tenerife the Scarlet Milkweed or
Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica)
is the species that is grown in gardens and parks here. The easiest way to get seeds is to buy them on Amazon. If you don’t have garden even just a balcony
or terrace will do, if you cultivate the plant in pots. I managed to have as
many as 50 adult butterflies emerge in the same week after the caterpillars had
fed on Milkweed I had grown on my balcony.
Monarch caterpillars
If you have a wild part of your garden
then make sure you leave plenty of grass to grow in it. You may be surprised to
know that there are very many of the Brown butterfly family (Satyrinae), such as the Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina) and the Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus), that come
into this category. The Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) is another butterfly in
this group with a caterpillar that feeds on grasses.
Blue butterflies often like grassy lawns that are
allowed to have wild flowers growing in them. Birds-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) is the food plant
for some species of these pretty little butterflies.
Here in Tenerife the African Grass Blue (Zizeeria knysna) has actually benefited from the lawns that people have in gardens and for hotels and other resort developments. This is because these lawns often have the weed White Clover (Trifolium repens) growing amongst the grass and their caterpillars can feed on this plant as well as on Oxalis species.
Here in Tenerife the African Grass Blue (Zizeeria knysna) has actually benefited from the lawns that people have in gardens and for hotels and other resort developments. This is because these lawns often have the weed White Clover (Trifolium repens) growing amongst the grass and their caterpillars can feed on this plant as well as on Oxalis species.
White Clover patch that supports a colony of African Grass Blue butterflies
And of course it is not just butterflies that
need the right food plants for their caterpillars because moths too need
specific plants for their larvae to feed on.
If you really want to help the butterflies and moths in your area it is
a good idea to get a good insect book that will tell you what each species
needs and then to cultivate these plants in your garden.
Good luck with your efforts at butterfly
gardening and I hope you end up seeing far more of these beautiful creatures
where you live!
Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.