Butterfly Gardening Basics

What is butterfly gardening? Simply put butterfly gardening is the art of growing flowers and plants that will attract these colorful and magnificent creatures to our own gardens. A properly planned butterfly garden offers great joy to visitors of the garden by attracting these lovely flitting creatures for our amusement and delight. It also ensures a safe habitat for the butterflies.

Deciding upon how to design your butterfly garden is just a matter of personal preference on your part. In reality, butterflies simply do not care about the style of your garden, only the plants that attract them. Typical points to consider for choosing your butterfly gardening plan are the size of your garden and the types of flowers and plants you want to grow. Pick a style of garden that appeals to you and ensure it contains the plants and flowers that appeal to the butterflies you wish to attract.

It is important to do thorough research on exactly which plants and flowers will attract certain species of butterflies. Speaking of butterfly species, do you have an idea of what kinds you want to attract to your garden? Do you know which ones live in your area? Once you work out this decision and decide which types of butterflies you want flying around and visiting your home, then simply create your butterfly gardening plan around those species.

When building your butterfly garden be careful how you coordinate the colors you choose for your flower beds. Although butterflies do not care about your choice of color, it’s better to plan ahead. You want to avoid having your butterfly garden looking like a hodgepodge of unrelated colors and textures that could create confusion to you and maybe even the butterflies.

Some people find it helpful to draw and color a layout of their butterfly gardening plan to see what the finished product would look like. Keep in mind that warm colors like red and orange are flashy and showy. These colors have a greater impact against a strong green background. Cool colors such as blue and purple are soothing and toned down and would work better with a white contrast to create the look of freshness and brightness.

Lastly, here is a brief list of plants and flowers that you can look into when designing your butterfly gardening plan. They are the honeysuckle, sunflower, milkweed, summer lilac, Valerian, daisies, Purple Coneflower, Yellow Sage, day lilies and lavender.

© 2006 Heart Inspired Presentations P.O. Box 1081 Bonsall CA 92003 www.HeartInspired.com 760 728-8783 All rights reserved. You may save this article to your computer and share it with friends as long as you keep the copyright and contact information intact.