The Butterfly Garden

When I had my first garden I was lucky enough to have a small area I could use as a vegetable patch. When in the garden in summer the sight of a butterfly in the garden would fill me full of dread knowing that my brassicas would soon be under threat. All these years later I am encouraging butterflies into my garden, so what is the difference? Simple really, the only visitors I received then seemed to be cabbage white butterflies and if they got to my cabbages and the like my crop could be decimated while I was away on holiday where now my visitors are much more varied.

Of course my garden is thankfully larger than my first garden and I am able to incorporate more varied planting but it is not just that, our understanding of the need to get a good natural balance in our gardens has grown. Each year I now look forward to my visitors and live in hope and anticipation of seeing one I have not seen before. I did not make the decision just to make a butterfly garden but take away the birds, the bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other insects and the garden might look good but for me it would be dead. I consider myself lucky and privileged that a variety of creatures visit and share my space. So what can we do to encourage butterflies into our gardens?

One thing to plant is a buddleja or buddlia which is also known as the butterfly bush because the little beauties cannot resist the taste of the sweet, honey scented flowers. You have choice of shades of blue, red and white and they should be cut back hard in early spring, you will be surprised how much growth they put on in a season.

Another plant I have grown for years is Sedum Autumn Joy which is a late flowerer to follow on from the buddlias. This herbaceous perennial provides a long period of interest with its blue green foliage developing light green flower buds that in autumn burst open to reveal a mass of salmon pink flowers that turn bronzy as they age. Small Tortoiseshell butterflies especially love the flat headed blooms. I have grown this for 30 years and the plants I have now all came from the original one that I bought mail order all that time ago. As a plant clumped up I split it and transplanted elsewhere in the garden, even potting some up to bring to my new garden. I think I just might have got my monies worth!

Michaelmas Daisies are another species favoured by butterflies and Aster Monch which has large yellow centred lilac blooms over many weeks is one of the earliest. Verbena bonariensis with its many small heads of purple blooms became the beloved of many garden designers, and perhaps overused, but will grow quite tall bringing height and an airy feel to a border and is popular with Tortoiseshells.

Also try Echinops, Hebe, Ceratostigma and Heleniums, Aubrieta, Yellow Alyssum, Primroses, Forget-Me-Not, Marsh Marigold and Lady’s Smock, Honest, Sweet Rocket and nettles. Nettles, but we gardeners spend so much of our time weeding out these stingers. Not all of us have the room to leave a small corner to run wild with nettles, I am lucky enough to have a field next to my garden and there is a small patch just over the hedge that is so close it might as well be mine, but if you have a patch of stinging nettles provides a nursery for the caterpillars of Comma, Painted Lady, Peacock, Red Admiral and Small Tortoiseshell. Cut the nettles down at midsummer before they flower and set seed to give soft, new growth for late caterpillars.

Many butterflies love sugary liquids such as that secreted from rotten fruit. In late summer I see Red Admirals competing with the birds and wasps on my windfall apples. Also I have a small bowl that I put out for my friendly blackbird Speckles (now also visited by a female blackbird, robin and thrush) with dried fruit and that tends to leave a sugary deposit on the bottom of the bowl which is lapped up with great delight by butterflies.

If you decide to create a butterfly garden don’t just think that you have to have a butterfly garden plan. Yes, do think about the butterfly garden layout so that you can provide a small wild area but think wildlife in general, a healthy garden need diversity.

You see it does not take much to encourage these beautiful insects into our gardens that provide so much pleasure. Be patient, it might take a while, but the wait will be very well worth it.

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