Earn your wings
PLANT THE RIGHT NECTAR-RICH FLOWERS AND YOU’LL HAVE A GARDEN FULL OF BUTTERFLIES ALL SPRING AND SUMMER
THE big winners in today’s greener, eco-friendly gardens are butterflies.
Nowadays, several of the commoner kinds are regular visitors and you may also see woodland or hedgerow species – or some of the more unusual oddities – flitting through occasionally.
But you can easily attract more butterflies to drop in and linger longer by turning your garden into a feeding station.
You don’t need a wildlife garden to bring in a large range of species. Glamorous borders work just as well so long as they are stocked with a diverse selection of nectar-rich flowers opening in sequence all season, from spring to autumn.
Single flowers are the ones to plant. The double sort very often don’t produce nectar as they’ve converted their pollen gear into extra petals.
This may look prettier to us but is no use to butterflies and other insects. Good butterfly plants include most old-fashioned hardy annuals and biennials, including honesty and sweet rocket, as well as some perennials, such as lavender, Sedum spectabile, scabious and Michaelmas daisies. Flowering herbs – especially marjoram and oregano – single roses and a few shrubs, especially buddleia, are a wise choice too.
Some wild flowers, such as valerian, are worth growing where they fit in with the general scheme of the garden. And although you probably don’t think of blackberries as butterfly plants, many species visit the flowers for a drop of nectar or to sunbathe in safety. So if there’s room, plant one along a fence or over an outbuilding.
But providing the right sort of flowers is not enough. Most butterflies are only on the wing on sunny days, and it’s in sunny places that you’ll see them flying, feeding or resting. So to create the ideal habitat, grow your nectar-rich flowers in warm, sheltered, sunny spots. The right style of garden helps too. Woodland species such as the speckled wood will visit gardens that have dappled, shady corners under a light canopy of trees and shrubs.
Gatekeepers linger at openings in a hedge or gaps in a border, and they have the endearing habit of following anyone walking along a narrow path between banks of plants. So a double border or the entrance to a garden within a garden is where you’ll find them when they visit.
All sorts of species will be attracted to cool, humid places on hot summer days. If you have a wildlife pond, plant hemp-agrimony. In midsummer it’ll be smothered with peacock, red admiral, small tortoiseshell and comma butterflies. Those same species will gravitate to a flowerfilled herbaceous border, especially if you provide shallow dishes of water or a birdbath where they can drink.
You’ll also boost your natural butterfly count by letting windfall apples rot on the ground in autumn, since butterflies enjoy the sweet juice.
But butterflies are just the reproductive end of the life cycle. If you want to make your garden a proper butterfly sanctuary, you need to grow food plants for caterpillars.
And not just any old plant will do, each butterfly has its own favourite species. You’ll find some caterpillars on garden plants, though native species are much better bets.
If you have old ivy growing in places where it’s not doing any harm, leave it – that and holly trees are the hosts for the holly blue butterfly, which is now often seen in gardens.
A clump of nettles can act as a creche for four or five popular kinds of butterflies. Better still is a wild patch containing a mixture of tall grasses and hay-field wild flowers. Of course, caterpillars aren’t so showy as their parents, so you’ll have to be observant if you want to follow their progress.
They are often highly camouflaged, or they’ll hide away on the shady side of stems or the undersides of leaves where they are safer from predators. It’s mainly the nuisance kinds, such as cabbage whites or some of the colony-forming caterpillars, that live on silken tents on soft fruit bushes that show themselves. But it all helps develop skills as a wildlife watcher.
If you treat yourself to a magnifying glass, then a whole new world will open up for you in the garden. You will be amazed.