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Turning Your Yard Into a Butterfly Sanctuary
by Phil Schappert
Butterflies and other insects have two things going for them that most other conservation targets don't: They are relatively short-lived, and they are quite small. As with most other insects, butterflies have short generation times, and many species have multiple generations in a year or a season. What we do to their habitat right now often has a direct impact on their lives. And while it is true that some insects have large home ranges and others travel long distances, many spend their entire lives in areas not much larger than most backyards. The implications for butterfly conservation are pretty simple: If you plan and implement a butterfly garden with these thoughts in mind, you can provide an oasis of habitat that can sustain the entire life history of some butterflies.
Favorite nectar plants in this flower border include purple coneflower, Echinacea pupuea, blazingstars, Liatris, and oxeye daisy, Heliopsis helianthoides.
Even simple, small changes can have pretty large impacts on the lives of the butterflies that frequent your garden. Think of your butterfly garden as a miniature wildlife preserve—even better, think of it as one in a chain of similar backyard sanctuaries—and you'll be well on your way to helping butterfly and other insect populations to not only persist in largely urban environments but thrive.
Fulfilling the Needs of Butterflies
Look at your neighborhood from a butterfly's perspective: Consider how far butterflies have to fly to find all the resources they need to live. How far will they have to travel if they can't find all they need in your backyard garden? If your neighbors also garden for wildlife, then you are well on your way to establishing a small network of butterfly habitats that can complement each other. Adjacent gardens provide corridors along which butterflies can move. The shorter its flights, the more likely it is that a butterfly will succeed in getting what it needs without falling prey to predators.
The way to turn your butterfly garden into a backyard sanctuary is to provide the necessary resources for all of a butterfly's life stages. Here are a few tips to help you create a butterfly-friendly environment.
A Great Spangled Fritillary sips nectar from wild bergamot, Monarda fistulosa, a prairie wildflower. Masses of blooms are more attractive to butterflies than a few widely scattered plants.
Choose caterpillar food plants as well as nectar plants. One of the most important considerations is to make sure that in addition to nectar-rich flowers you include caterpillar host plants to give female butterflies places to lay their eggs and provide food for their caterpillars. Host plants don't only help keep female butterflies around your garden; they also help attract males looking for females.
It is unfortunate that many gardeners consider caterpillars pests, but I think—though I might be considered biased—that caterpillars are the most interesting part of the butterfly's life cycle. Of course, many gardeners fail to realize that where there are host plants and caterpillars, you can be sure that chrysalides will be found nearby and that there will eventually be more butterflies.
Give preference to native plants and wildflowers. The local butterflies that you are trying to attract to your garden have a history with the local plants. Given a choice between unknown, foreign plant species and locally native species, the butterflies will most likely prefer natives. Native plants also give a sense of place to your yard and to the community, making Tucson reflect the nearby desert while draping Tampa in tropical foliage.
Arrange plants thoughtfully. Most butterfly habitats include several layers, with a variety of plants at differing heights. To emulate nature's multilayered approach you should include plants that bloom at different heights, as well as small flowering shrubs that offer twigs to perch on. Consider adding a few vines to your plant choices since these often bloom at various heights. Masses of blooms, or the close proximity of caterpillar host plants, are more attractive to butterflies than widely spaced plants, so give some thought to mass plantings of particularly attractive species like Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia) or asters.
Pick plants for every season. Attract adult butterflies with colorful flowers that offer nectar from spring through fall, or choose a variety of plants that bloom at different times of the season to achieve the same effect. It is also useful to provide a range of suitable host plants for multi-brooded species. For example, provide Monarchs with early-blooming milkweeds that may die back halfway through summer as well as late-blooming species that provide suitable egg-laying sites later in the season.
Create a sunny corner. Butterflies need some open, sunny spaces, out of the wind, where they can bask. Their bodies depend on the temperature of the air around them, and they need sunshine to warm up to flight temperature. Consider not covering every square inch of your garden with plants but instead leaving a low, protected sunny corner or even a centrally located spot as a butterfly sunning area.
Provide shelter and perches. Butterflies also need sheltered areas to escape strong winds and rain. Unfortunately, so-called "butterfly houses" rarely achieve their goal (although they do make good refuges for predators like spiders and wasps, which help in the biological control of garden pests). Instead, a border of shrubs and trees can provide host plants for larvae, as well as dry places where butterflies can hide from bad weather or predators. Untended edges of grasses, clovers, and dandelions also provide shelter and early nectar for certain species. Some butterflies also require perches where they can watch for mates, so tall herbs or small flowering shrubs can serve a dual purpose.
Set up a spot for puddling. In addition to the nectar they sip from plants, most species need to acquire compounds that they cannot get from plants. Many of these are mineral salts that are naturally available in the soil of your garden. An empty sandy spot under a bird bath or dripper where the soil is often wet is the perfect spot for butterflies to gather on the ground and get the additional nutrients they need.
Relax your neat and tidy standards. A garden that looks and acts more like nature is not only easier on the person maintaining it but also allows habitat to develop for butterflies at all four life stages. Leave a corner of your yard untended, allowing native grasses to grow and feed larvae of skippers and satyrs. Don't remove clovers; they provide early nectar to a variety of insects and are larval host plants for sulphurs, blues, and skippers. In autumn, let fallen leaves create a natural mulch—where moths and skippers pupate—before the leaf litter decomposes into nutrients for your garden.
Lose the lawn. Plan to reduce or eliminate lawn, which offers nothing to wildlife, wastes precious water, and is a major source of pesticide and herbicide contamination of our waterways and lakes.
Hold the poisons. One caveat that should be readily appreciated by anyone with a butterfly garden is that the use of pesticides#151;even so-called biological control agents such as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), which kills all caterpillars indiscriminately#151;should be strictly controlled or, even better, avoided altogether. Stick with natural products such as insecticidal soaps or plant-derived oils for those rare occasions when pest control is needed. I rarely use even natural pesticides in my garden, preferring to let nature take its own course—which, in my case, includes letting lizards, spiders, wasps, ants, and other insect predators do the dirty work for me. My way of thinking is, why should I pay for what nature will do free of charge?
In addition to caterpillar host plants and nectar-rich flowers, a diverse butterfly garden includes places where butterflies can seek shelter to escape strong winds and rain, as well as places where they can perch and warm their bodies, as the blues above.
Looking Beyond Your Butterfly Sanctuary
If butterflies are worth attracting to your garden, aren't they also worth having in local parks, public gardens, and natural areas? And to ensure that there are butterflies available to come to your garden, don't you also need to help protect them everywhere?
My best advice is to be proactive rather than reactive. Don't wait for butterflies to become endangered, but work now to help keep them safe. For example, ask local or state agencies to cease, or at least limit, roadside pesticide spraying; ask them to ensure that roadside mowing is rotated through the seasons instead of always being done at the same time in the same place each year; and to use native plants wherever possible. Any of these initiatives that you can conduct on a wide scale will help you always have butterflies—the flying flowers of the insect world—in your own backyard sanctuary to watch and enjoy.
Phil Schappert studies butterfly-plant interactions and teaches ecology at the University of Texas at Austin. He and his wife, Pat, manage the Stengl "Lost Pines" Biology Station near Smithville, Texas. He is the author of A World for Butterflies: Their Lives, Behavior, and Future.
Top and bottom photos: David Cavagnaro; middle photo: Jane Ruffin