But first, you might want to do some research or have some pointers to the right direction.
Choose a sunny location! Butterflies are solar powered creatures. They need to be warm and dry in order to fly. A cloud crossing over the sun can make butterfly activity drop from dozens during a sunny period to none at all a few minutes later when it’s cloudy. If you do not have an open yard, plant a series of small gardens that will take advantage of the sunny spots as the sun moves through your yard. The butterflies will move with the sun.
Provide shelter! Butterflies are fragile and can be blown about easily. Good thing there where no butterflies about Saturday night at the Rooster Crow site! Gardens on the edges of your yard, up against shrubby or forested areas or a fence can offer considerable protection from strong winds. Gardens placed out in the most open part of your property to take advantage of the sun all day long will be more attractive to butterflies if designed to also offer shelter. A horseshoe shaped garden that utilizes flowering shrubs offers nectar out of the wind on at least one of its edges no matter what direction the wind is blowing, even on the windiest day. Hummingbirds utilize cover near gardens and feeders in between feeding sessions. Dead snags and bare twigs in nearby shrubs become favored resting spots and can be predictable places to search for perched hummingbirds. Keep in mind that hummingbirds favor slim, downward sloping branches over open areas for their nests, just the sort of branches that border your open yard and gardens. Keep this in mind when trimming in the early spring.
The importance of diversity. A wide open grass lawn with a lone hummingbird or butterfly garden in the middle of it may attract some activity but probably very little compared to an area with lots of options. Diversity is the key. You can incorporate into your plan formal and informal areas, natural or weedy areas or edges, plantings of trees and shrubs, a wildflower meadow and a minimal amount of lawn. Butterfly and hummingbird activity will take off…like a hummingbird!
Work with what you already have. Incorporate your gardens into available spots. Do not cut down your forest to put in a butterfly garden or create a meadow. Use some of your mowed lawn instead. Get thee to the library to research caterpillar food plants. You will want to plant some of these.
Long term planting. Sketch a plan for your property incorporating all the elements mentioned above that you want in your garden habitats. The plan can be carried out in stages, each year tackling a different garden, meadow, shrub border or even a pond area. You’ll find it very helpful to have a rough plan to be working from. If a permanent watering system is possible, consider it early on before you’ve planted hundreds of dollars worth of plants. Such a watering system will help you through drought periods and in the first year of a new garden’s life. By planting natives you should be able to keep watering to a minimum.
Be selective and plant in masses. A garden with one hundred different kinds of plants, one or two of each is much less attractive to butterflies and hummers than massed plantings of well-selected plants. You’ll probably want to include plants favored by butterflies and hummers. Butterfly bush, bee balm, coneflower and honeysuckle are all high on the list. Your local nurseryman should be able to make some good recommendations and don’t forget the folks at the Master Gardeners through the extension. They are a veritable wealth of information and love to talk gardening. Be sure to cover the tough times too by providing early spring bloomers and plants that bloom right up until the first heavy frost in the late fall.
Mix perennials with annuals. Perennials only need to be planted once; they live from year to year, with varying blooming periods. Over time, many perennials need to be divided, providing you with new plants to stretch your gardens even further into the yard or to give away to friends. Annuals are short-lived plants; their entire life cycle takes place in one growing season. They must be planted from seed each year, although some do reseed themselves. Many of them have a longer blooming period than perennials and they can be tucked into bare spots in your perennial garden as filler. Many annuals bloom right up until first frost.
Natives. Choose as many native plants as possible. It’s just the right thing to do! Being native, they belong here and will require less care (water, fertilizer, pampering). Many gardeners in the Rogue Valley are purists when it comes to tree, shrub and vine selection for bird gardens/food, but not when it comes to butterfly and hummingbird gardening. In my own adventures in butterfly and hummer gardening, I tend to include as many natives as possible, but to compliment those with alien plants that are non-invasive and fill in the spaces in the garden, so there is in unending offering of intense nectar spring through the first hard frost.
Provide Nectar Spring Through Late Fall. Choose as many plants as you can that flower in the spring, but also value and spare some of your “weeds” that are spring bloomers (mustards, purple dead nettle, clovers, dandelions, common strawberry) and note the butterfly activity they attract. Include long blooming nectar plants like butterfly bush in your gardens. Butterfly bush begins blooming in July and blooms right up until the frost. This is a real bonus for migratory butterflies and late moving hummers. To encourage such a lengthy blooming season does require some work on your part. You need to deadhead the spent flowers; otherwise the plant puts its energy into developing seeds and stops producing flowers. With all the concern about butterfly bush being invasive, by deadheading it you nip this in the bud, so to speak. Save space in your gardens for long blooming annuals like zinnias, Mexican sunflowers, tropical sage and tropical milkweed. Some gardeners swear by marigolds. All of these annuals bloom right up until the frost, an important time period to cover.
Choose a sunny location! Butterflies are solar powered creatures. They need to be warm and dry in order to fly. A cloud crossing over the sun can make butterfly activity drop from dozens during a sunny period to none at all a few minutes later when it’s cloudy. If you do not have an open yard, plant a series of small gardens that will take advantage of the sunny spots as the sun moves through your yard. The butterflies will move with the sun.
Provide shelter! Butterflies are fragile and can be blown about easily. Good thing there where no butterflies about Saturday night at the Rooster Crow site! Gardens on the edges of your yard, up against shrubby or forested areas or a fence can offer considerable protection from strong winds. Gardens placed out in the most open part of your property to take advantage of the sun all day long will be more attractive to butterflies if designed to also offer shelter. A horseshoe shaped garden that utilizes flowering shrubs offers nectar out of the wind on at least one of its edges no matter what direction the wind is blowing, even on the windiest day. Hummingbirds utilize cover near gardens and feeders in between feeding sessions. Dead snags and bare twigs in nearby shrubs become favored resting spots and can be predictable places to search for perched hummingbirds. Keep in mind that hummingbirds favor slim, downward sloping branches over open areas for their nests, just the sort of branches that border your open yard and gardens. Keep this in mind when trimming in the early spring.
The importance of diversity. A wide open grass lawn with a lone hummingbird or butterfly garden in the middle of it may attract some activity but probably very little compared to an area with lots of options. Diversity is the key. You can incorporate into your plan formal and informal areas, natural or weedy areas or edges, plantings of trees and shrubs, a wildflower meadow and a minimal amount of lawn. Butterfly and hummingbird activity will take off…like a hummingbird!
Work with what you already have. Incorporate your gardens into available spots. Do not cut down your forest to put in a butterfly garden or create a meadow. Use some of your mowed lawn instead. Get thee to the library to research caterpillar food plants. You will want to plant some of these.
Long term planting. Sketch a plan for your property incorporating all the elements mentioned above that you want in your garden habitats. The plan can be carried out in stages, each year tackling a different garden, meadow, shrub border or even a pond area. You’ll find it very helpful to have a rough plan to be working from. If a permanent watering system is possible, consider it early on before you’ve planted hundreds of dollars worth of plants. Such a watering system will help you through drought periods and in the first year of a new garden’s life. By planting natives you should be able to keep watering to a minimum.
Be selective and plant in masses. A garden with one hundred different kinds of plants, one or two of each is much less attractive to butterflies and hummers than massed plantings of well-selected plants. You’ll probably want to include plants favored by butterflies and hummers. Butterfly bush, bee balm, coneflower and honeysuckle are all high on the list. Your local nurseryman should be able to make some good recommendations and don’t forget the folks at the Master Gardeners through the extension. They are a veritable wealth of information and love to talk gardening. Be sure to cover the tough times too by providing early spring bloomers and plants that bloom right up until the first heavy frost in the late fall.
Mix perennials with annuals. Perennials only need to be planted once; they live from year to year, with varying blooming periods. Over time, many perennials need to be divided, providing you with new plants to stretch your gardens even further into the yard or to give away to friends. Annuals are short-lived plants; their entire life cycle takes place in one growing season. They must be planted from seed each year, although some do reseed themselves. Many of them have a longer blooming period than perennials and they can be tucked into bare spots in your perennial garden as filler. Many annuals bloom right up until first frost.
Natives. Choose as many native plants as possible. It’s just the right thing to do! Being native, they belong here and will require less care (water, fertilizer, pampering). Many gardeners in the Rogue Valley are purists when it comes to tree, shrub and vine selection for bird gardens/food, but not when it comes to butterfly and hummingbird gardening. In my own adventures in butterfly and hummer gardening, I tend to include as many natives as possible, but to compliment those with alien plants that are non-invasive and fill in the spaces in the garden, so there is in unending offering of intense nectar spring through the first hard frost.
Provide Nectar Spring Through Late Fall. Choose as many plants as you can that flower in the spring, but also value and spare some of your “weeds” that are spring bloomers (mustards, purple dead nettle, clovers, dandelions, common strawberry) and note the butterfly activity they attract. Include long blooming nectar plants like butterfly bush in your gardens. Butterfly bush begins blooming in July and blooms right up until the frost. This is a real bonus for migratory butterflies and late moving hummers. To encourage such a lengthy blooming season does require some work on your part. You need to deadhead the spent flowers; otherwise the plant puts its energy into developing seeds and stops producing flowers. With all the concern about butterfly bush being invasive, by deadheading it you nip this in the bud, so to speak. Save space in your gardens for long blooming annuals like zinnias, Mexican sunflowers, tropical sage and tropical milkweed. Some gardeners swear by marigolds. All of these annuals bloom right up until the frost, an important time period to cover.
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