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butterfly bush

The Best Way to Watch Butterflies? While Lounging in the Pool!

What is the best way to watch butterflies? Outdoors, of course. So you can see them close up. But even better than that is watching butterflies will lounging in or around the swimming pool.

Plant butterfly bushes (buddleia) near your swimming pool and watch butterflies hovering around the blooming flowers on warm, sunny days. Butterflies often need a place to get a drink of water, so you can make shallow puddles for them near your pool, too, to keep them around you longer.

Be sure you also keep your own pool sparkling clean with well-chosen pool filters and pool chemicals, and everyone will have a lovely day outside. It’s easy. You can order them on line and have them delivered to your door, along with the proper instructions for maintaining your pool.

It is fun to have coffee, breakfast by the pool to watch butterflies in the early morning sunshine. Their colors just seem richer in the early light. Lunch by the pool with friends and family is just more fun with butterflies, too.

You may even want to stay out after dusk to watch their cousins the moths as the night-blooming flowers open up. Some moths, like the luna, can be spectacularly beautiful. And dinner by the pool can be delightful as the day cools down.

When your favorite species of butterfly are swarming, for example, when the monarchs migrate through your area, you’ll want to take advantage of the opportunity to stay outside with them as much as you can.

Just make sure that your pool is well maintained, as healthful and beautiful as breakfast among the butterflies.


Tags: butterfly bush, swimming pool, pool chemicals, Butterflies, Monarch butterflies, luna moth

Butterflies: Such Amazing Creatures

Cethosia biblis Malaya

CETHOSIA BIBLIS MALAYA Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever wondered how an ugly creature can turn into one of the most beautiful insects?  The answer to this is not a fairy tale.  Try to check out the butterfly’s life cycle and you will see how the impossible is made possible.  This is just one of the many wonders of nature. Imagine how a caterpillar turns into an amazing creature like a butterfly – it’s pretty amazing.

After the caterpillar turns into a pupa, it becomes a butterfly after sometime. Butterflies are large insects that flaunt their beautiful wings when they fly. They can be seen in all countries around the globe especially in areas that are topical. And there are different types of butterflies that can be found in this world.

Here are some of the types of butterflies:

American Painted Lady – this type you can normally see in desserts, meadows and mountains. They feast on the nectars of zinnia, thistle, mint, heliotrope and butterfly bush. Sunflower, thistle, wormwood, borage and hollyhocks are some of this type’s host plants


Tags: butterfly bush, sphinx moth, cabbage white, different types of butterflies, black eyed susan

How to Plant a Butterfly Bush

Butterfly Bush

While there are many different candidates, one you should absolutely consider is the butterfly bush. As its name indicates, it is intrinsically related to the attraction of butterflies.

Does this mean that you shouldn’t consider other plants? No, you should. But if you compare the various options in terms of how attractive they are to butterflies, and how easy they are to plant and keep alive, the butterfly bush is almost always hands down the winner.

If you are not an experienced gardener, these bushes can be a bit intimidating to get started with. This can be especially true if you are dealing with a fairly small area and you need to make every plant, flower and shrub count. (more…)


Tags: winged visitors, natural compost, butterfly bush, butterfly gardeners, butterfly bushes

Butterfly Bush (Buddleia) ‘White Ball’

Easy-to-grow butterfly bushes attract multitudes of butterflies all day long.

Not many plants are as prolific blooming, fun or versatile as the Buddleia or Butterfly Bush. Also called Summer Lilac, it is the one plant that can be found in almost every butterfly garden around the world as it is a virtual butterfly magnet, attracting more butterflies than just about any plant growing in temperate climates.

The beautiful flower panicles that appear for several months emit a sweet honey fragrance that will be a favorite of every butterfly in your neighborhood. This week we are featuring ‘White Ball’, a new, super-compact, white-flowering Buddleia davidii variety that vastly increases the number of places you can grow a butterfly bush. (more…)


Tags: butterfly bushes, fragrant blooms, butterfly plant, butterfly bush, grey foliage

Garden Plants That Attract Hummingbirds and Butterflies

A Gray Hairstreak feeding on a flower

GREY HAIRSTREAK BUTTERFLY FEEDING ON A FLOWER Image via Wikipedia

There is nothing more wonderful than relaxing in your guarded and watching the jeweled flight of humming birds and butterflies as they go about their business in your garden.

But if you don’t often see hummingbirds and butterflies in your garden, it’s not because they don’t like you, it’s probably because they don’t like your plants!

Hummingbirds and butterflies are attracted to certain types of plants because they drink the nectar from them. Therefore its chance to reason if you want to attract them to your garden and one of the types of plants that they like.

Now this doesn’t mean that you have to limit yourself to just a few types of plants because there are many different shrubs and flowers that hummingbirds and butterflies love. (more…)


Tags: butterfly bush, birds and butterflies, colorful flowers, humming birds, winged creatures

Create a Butterfly Garden

Having a beautiful backyard to enjoy and relax in isn’t just about plants, flowers and nice grass. For me, it includes birds, butterflies, dragonflies and even bats.a necessary part of our eco system.

Watching birds bathing and bats flitting about at night are great fun, but it is the Butterflies that are truly spectacular. There are hundreds of varieties of Butterflies, each unique unto itself.

Butterflies are one of nature’s most beautiful and delicate creatures. Creating a habitat for them will bring a variety of Butterflies to your yard for your viewing pleasure and it creates a safe haven for them to breed.

There is nothing more enjoyable than watching a dozen Butterflies feeding on a single Lavender plant or rose bush. Butterflies are an essential part of our pollination system as well. Without butterflies and bees there would be no flowers.

Incorporating plants into your landscape that Butterflies are attracted to is easy to do. (more…)


Tags: planting perennials, chemical insecticides, Butterfly Gardening, butterfly bush, butterflies and bees, shrubs and trees

Make a Garden to Bring in Butterflies

With many species suitable cracked and bags others useless because of our suddenly sighted and selfish tailor of living, conservation is one thing that all of us penury to pay interest to. Butterflies, with their diverse scale of vivid ensign invite most of us. The sad part, however, is that many species of butterflies are tight approaching extinction. Their normal homed is whichever being destroyed or is not being favored by gardeners. Butterflies basic detail plants and plants as well as an environment friendly to laying eggs to flourish.

Those interested in providing an environment which will support butterflies, for conservation as well as enjoying since myriads colors the butterflies come in, can make a small contribution by making a butterfly backyard. Like any other plot, butterfly patch requires a little bit of energy, a lot of mind, and an impartial amount of learning about the plants to wish from.

Making a butterfly backyard will add to the inclusive conservation exertion along with beautifying the plot and make it more fragrant. There are hundreds of plants and plants that will draw butterflies and divergent to general belief, greenery and greenery too play an important part in butterfly gardens. The icing on the cake is that it will supply loads of avenues for some exotic photography too.

Autumn Sage, Marigolds, Sweet Pepperbush and Phlox are the most trendy plants but the lean is long. Plants like Morning Glory and Butterfly Bush, also known as Buddleia, too snare the awareness of butterflies. Among bushes and bushes one can desire New Jersey Tea Tree and/or the Hawthorn Bush. Wildflowers, like Spearmint, Ironweed or Thistles also support butterflies.

Once the abundance is made one has only to ponder deftly as to where to workshop them for greatest payment. With this half the job is over, one can outing to charming thought of the plants and the butterfly population that they will encourage.

Insects like, spiders, ants, flies, wasps, and birds are unsafe for butterflies. The tough part is that one cannot use pesticides indiscriminately to murder these insects as pesticides are hurtful to caterpillars, larvae, and butterflies. The blood-sucking insects, aphids, cannot be controlled by pesticides. It is a tricky setting but life provides answers where creature efforts become unviable. Whereas other insects can be controlled by using traps, the normal way to dominate aphids is to freedom ladybugs and other bugs that do not injury butterflies. Sometimes a plain spray of water on aphid infected plants will do the job.

Butterflies are even attracted by what we call garden munchies and mashed up fruits like watermelon, bananas, and oranges too will help with making the garden more helpful to butterfly population.

One hardship not disquieted that something erroneous is being done by increasing the population of the butterflies in this manner. Mother Nature has its own sense and balances everything in its own way. Butterflies too are vulnerable to disease and viruses.

Information on life cycle of a butterfly can be found at the Butterfly Facts site.
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Tags: butterfly bush, butterfly population, species of butterflies, exotic photography, butterfly gardens

Propagating Butterfly Bush from Root Cuttings

Buddleja

Image via Wikipedia

Propagating Butterfly Bush from root cuttings.

The first step for how to root cuttings from the butterfly bush is to select a stem for cutting. In early Fall, choose a stem for butterfly bush propagation that is at least 6 inches long, and is new growth cut the flower off. A new growth stem will be a lighter green than old growth.

Also be aware that if you live in a colder climate where the butterfly bush dies back to the ground, the whole shrub may be new growth.

Once you have selected a stem to propagate the butterfly bush, take a sharp pair of shears and cut the stem off just below a leaf node. A leaf node is where a set of leaves will be growing.

The butterfly bush cutting should be at least 4 inches long and should contain at least one additional set of leaves above the selected leaf node. Snip the cutting from the stem.

Next, strip all but the top most set of leaves from the cutting. The cutting should have only two leaves left, dip the end of the cutting in rooting hormone.

Rooting hormone will increase the chances of successfully propagating butterfly bush, place the cutting into damp potting soil. Place the pot in a sheltered location out of direct sunlight. (more…)


Tags: butterfly bushes, potting soil, butterfly bush, butterfly gardens, tiger swallowtails

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