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Keeping your Water Garden Clean
Water purity is a major concern for water gardeners. A poorly
kept water garden is unsightly, foul smelling, and a breeding
ground for unwanted mosquitoes. No water gardener wants their
treasured space to be any of those things.
Algae is the...
Landscape Design - Creating Balance In Home Landscaping
Balance is a principle of all art forms, design, and even
landscape design. It implies a sense of equality. And while
there may be just a little more to it, this is how I explain it
to make it easier for first timers and do it yourselfers...
Landscape Lighting Design Ideas to Showcase Your Home
(ARA) - Landscape lighting used to be simple. A few recessed can fixtures lining the front path, a couple downlights tucked in the trees, and you were done. Not anymore. When it comes to the great outdoors, homeowners have seen the light. ...
Selling Your House? Mow Your Lawn!
A property that has a well manicured lawn has one of the best chances at showing pride in ownership than any other outdoor technique. For one thing, there is a large upswing in the priority that homeowners place in their outdoor living spaces. ...
The importance of bedroom design in a home decoration project.
Dear friends,
A home is a place where we live, spend most of our lives,
with family members and our loved ones.
A bedroom design project includes a careful study of the
surrounding of the entire home. When an architect plans
a home, he takes...
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Butterfly Gardening
Copyright © 2005 Jane Lake All Rights Reserved
Butterfly gardening is not only a joy, it is one way that you can help restore declining butterfly populations. Simply adding a few new plants to your backyard may attract dozens of different butterflies, according to landscape designers at the University of Guelph.
Butterflies, like honeybees, are excellent pollinators and will help increase your flower, fruit and vegetable production if you provide them with a variety of flowers and shrubs. They are also beautiful to watch, and are sometimes called "flowers on the wing."
- Begin by seeding part of your yard with a wildflower or butterfly seed mix, available through seed catalogues and garden centers. Wildflowers are a good food source for butterflies and their caterpillars.
- Choose simple flowers over double hybrids. They offer an easy-to-reach nectar source.
- Provide a broad range of flower colors. Some butterflies like oranges, reds and yellows while others are drawn toward white, purple or blue flowers.
- Arrange wildflowers and cultivated plants in clumps to make it easier for butterflies to identify them as a source of nectar.
- If caterpillars are destroying favorite plants, transfer them by hand to another food source. Avoid the use of pesticides, which can kill butterflies and other beneficial insects.
- Some common caterpillar food sources
are asters, borage, chickweed, clover, crabgrass, hollyhocks, lupines, mallows, marigold, milkweed or butterfly weed, nasturtium, parsley,
pearly everlasting, ragweed, spicebush, thistle, violets and wisteria. Caterpillars also thrive on trees such as ash, birch, black locust, elm and oak.
- Annual nectar plants include ageratum, alyssum, candy tuft, dill, cosmos, pinks, pin cushion flower, verbena and zinnia.
- Common perennial nectar plants include chives, onions, pearly
everlasting, chamomile, butterfly weed, milkweeds, daisies, thistles, purple coneflower, sea holly, blanket flower,
lavender, marjoram, mints, moss phlox, sage, stonecrops, goldenrod, dandelion and valerian.
Remember that butterflies are cold-blooded insects that bask in the sun to warm their wings for flight and to orient themselves. They also need shelter from the wind, a source of
water, and partly shady areas provided by trees and shrubs.
About the Author
Jane Lake's work has appeared in Canadian Living, You and Modern Woman magazines. To make your own butterfly feeders, read her article, Butterfly Food or visit her Nature Crafts section for more nature articles, including how to make nectar for hummingbirds, plus more on butterfly gardens.
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