Butterfly gardening

Butterfly gardening is designed to create an environment that attracts butterflies, as well as certain moths. Butterfly gardening is often aimed at inviting those butterflies and moths to lay eggs as well. Because some plants are not fed upon by adult butterflies, the caterpillar host should also be planted for a bigger population of butterflies. Butterflies typically feed on the nectar of flowers, and there are hundreds of such plants that may be planted to attract them, depending on the location, time of year, and other factors. In addition to the planting of flowers that feed butterflies, other means of attracting them include constructing ¨butterfly houses¨, providing sand for puddling, water, and other resources or food items, including rotten fruit.

Some people only like to look at the butterflies, while others like to take pictures as well. Others try to help the butterfly population by planting native plants which rare or threatened butterflies feed on. Done correctly, butterfly gardening can increase the populations of butterflies. Many butterflies are becoming less abundant as a result of habitat destruction and fragmentation, and they do not feed on the plants regularly found in gardens. Others may also help in tagging monarch butterflies, which helps scientists monitor the monarch population and their migratory routes. Butterflies also serve as flower pollinators and attracting the butterflies can also assist in the pollination of nearby plants. Typically, flowers of plants that attract butterflies also attract other insect pollinators.

Butterflies have many predators, including mantids, wasps, spiders, birds, ants, true bugs, and flies in the Tachinidae family. If these predators are becoming a problem, they can be controlled with traps rather than pesticides, which may also kill butterflies and their larvae. There are also diseases that afflict butterflies, such as bacteria in the Pseudomonas genus, the Nuclear Polyhedrosis Virus, and Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, which only infects queen butterflies and monarch butterflies.

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Wikipedia