Butterflies: If you build it, they will come

The Girl Scouts have planted the butterfly garden! Butterfly gardens have two different kinds of plants: flowers to attract and feed the butterflies, and host plants to support cocoons and feed caterpillars.

There are many plants that are suitable for butterfly gardens, such as lantana, milkweed, butterfly bush, joe pye weed, and many others. Unfortunately, a lot of well known butterfly plants are not available around here. Lucky for us, a lot of common flowers and herbs will work just as well. Our community butterfly garden has sunflowers, marigolds, fennel, two kinds of parsley, basil, pineapplesage and mint.

You can even make a mini-butterfly garden right on your deck in small containers! All you need is something to attract them, like marigolds or pineapple sage, and something for the caterpillars, like parsley or basil. Put them together in a big container, or just have them next to each other is smaller ones. The plants and/or seeds can be found at the 4-9 market, the greenhouses at the flower market, or sometimes even at the BX and/or commissary (to the left as you pass the ID check lady).

This picture is my deck butterfly garden. The big plant is pineapple sage, purchased at the commissary. You can see some fennel in the foreground and some basil in the background just coming up.

Here are some links to learn more about butterflies and butterfly gardens:

Butterfly Garden Basics

Local Butterflies you might see

Herb Butterfly Gardens