February, 2010:

Image by BeautifulRust via Flickr

By: JC Schwartz

Butterflies need water just like we do. Keep a mud puddle damp in a sunny location, or fill a bucket with sand and enough water to make the sand moist. Periodically saturate the sand to keep it moist. You can also bury the bucket in the ground for aesthetic purposes and provide access to it by surrounding it with some small rocks.

Male butterflies appreciate a patch of wet sand or dirt. They sip salts and other minerals from the sand, a behavior known as “puddling”. The minerals are passed on in a sperm packet during mating, to enrich the eggs.

In you want to include the use of butterflies in your landscape you will need to create a safety zone for your butterflies to feel safe. Butterflies frequent habitual zones, where they feel safe and where areas of the landscape meet with the tree lines.Creating your butterfly gardens near or around trees will help in attracting even more of these graceful creatures to your gardens. You should also consider hedges; groups of small trees or shrubs; or walls, fences, trellises covered with vines. (more…)