Attract butterflies
As many as 18 different species will visit your garden, but only if you’ve got the right plants
Late July is when butterflies start turning up in serious numbers – hopefully. Some years are better than others, while a few are a total washout. It all depends on the weather.
Of course, butterflies are with us throughout early summer, but as caterpillars. Now we’re getting to their moment to fly. The vagaries of our temperamental climate have an influence long before those caterpillars hatch out. For example, some of last year’s peacock butterflies survived the winter, while others perished.
In a butterfly-friendly winter more peacocks live to fly in spring, more females are mated – and there are more peacock caterpillars on the leaves of nettles, or wild hop.
Those caterpillars should be going through their metamorphosis around now. Something similar happens with the small tortoiseshell, another familiar garden visitor. They hibernate in places such as sheds, wood piles and hollow trees, but only some survive the winter. Those few survivors mate in spring and their offspring are caterpillars in May and June. Their lives as flying adults start in July.
But what makes for a truly memorable butterfly summer is an influx of incoming migrants. The species that really gets noticed is the painted lady, an eyecatching orange and black butterfly.
Painted ladies arrive from North Africa in large numbers in some years, but are missing in others. When they do come here numbers usually peak in mid-August. If this year is a bumper summer, the butterflies will visit – if your garden is worth visiting. In fact, a garden that has plenty of nectar plants, and some breeding habitat, can attract as many as 18 different butterfly species.