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Folks in NE
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Bee & Butterfly Garden

Bring on the Butterflies

Sure you can plant a window box full of flowers and attract a few butterflies, but to observe a wide diversity of these magical creatures, you'll want to create a haven specially for them. Your butterfly garden will provide food and shelter for many different insects. You'll enjoy watching an array of bees, wasps, flies, and other insects sample the nectar and pollen completely undisturbed by your presence. A bee and butterfly garden is an easy way to bring a variety of wildlife into your own enchanted land. Your kids will love trying to identify all the different insects living in your garden, while helping to show that not all "bugs" are bad.

Site Selection

Your bee and butterfly garden should offer plenty of sun and protection from strong winds if possible. The south or southeast side of a fence, building, hedge, or slope are excellent locations. Provide some rocks for insects to warm themselves on those cool, crisp mornings. You can also make a "puddle" for butterflies using a bird bath or a shallow container placed in the garden. You might have chance to see a pair of American painted lady's share a sip of water from the puddle.

Create Habitat

Your garden doesn't need to be large, but the more naturalized the better. Plant flowers in groups to help create a more natural feel to your garden. Rough edges, such as tall grasses, wildflowers, perennial and annual flowers and even a few weeds will provide the kind of food and shelter that butterflies need. A simple design, large masses of a few nectar flowers, is most effective. Butterflies and bees tend to concentrate on masses of flowers to get am ample supply of nectar in a short distance.

Types of Plants

Butterflies require food plants for their larval stages (caterpillars) and nectar plants for their adult stage. Some caterpillars feed on specific host plants, while others feed on a variety of plants. If possible include both larval host plants and adult nectar plants in your butterfly garden. Stick to old fashioned varieties more than the faint-scented modern forms of the same flower (garden phlox for example). Try to choose flowers that grow in clusters (composite flowers) to provide easy landing sites for the butterflies. Include and assortment of plants for season long bloom. also, include flowering shrubs to serve as a backdrop to your garden/ Many different shrubs will help attract more wildlife to your enchanted land.

Plants To Attract Butterflies: (L) Larval Food Plants and (N) Nectar Plants
Annuals	Perennials	Shrubs
Cosmos (N) Dill (N) Four O'clock (N) Gomphrena (N) Marigold (N) Nasturtium (N) Nicotiana (N) Parsley (L) Salvia (N) Scabiosa (N) Snapdragon (N, L) Sweet Alyssum (N) Verbena (N) Zinnia (N)	Aster (N, L) Beebalm (L) Butterfly Bush (N) Butterfly Milkweed (N, L) Coreopsis (N) Gayfeather (N) Goldenrod (N, L) Joe-Pye Weed (N) Swamp Milkweed (N, L) Garden Phlox (N) Coneflower (N) Sedum (N) Sweet Fennel (N, L) Yarrow (N)	Chokecherry (N, L) Cotoneaster (N) Cinquefol (N) Lilac (N) Mock Orange (N) Privet (N, L) Spirea ( L) Viburnum sp. (N) Wild Plum (N)

Butterflies at State Fair Park
Alfalfa/Orange Sulfer Buckeye Checkered White Giant Swallowtail Painted Lady Tiger Swallowtail Delaware Skipper Scalloped Sootywing Milbert's Tortoiseshell	American Painted Lady Cabbage White Clouded Sulpher Gray Hairstreak Red Admiral Giant Cloudless Sulpher Sachem Skipper	Tawny Emperor Black Swallowtail Checkered Skipper Eastern Tailed Blue Monarch Silver Spotted Skipper Tawny Edged Skipper Little Sulpher Wild Indigo Dustywing