Butterfly Garden

yuliad 10/29/2011, 4:08 am

Hello,

I have a question about Butterfly garden. My daughter would like to have one, but I do not know were to place it. I am thinking that the colors of the flowers will bring some pollinators into my garden, but I really don't want to deal with extra all larvae that could end up on my veggies. I have Cosmos Mix and Caribbean Mix seeds. I also would like to grow some flowers in general. My mom would always grow peonies, tulips, and asters...But it was in Russia and I live in Florida.
Yulia

janezee 10/29/2011, 6:34 am

Hi, Yulia,
I just googled 'best flowers for butterfly garden Florida' and came up with a lot of sites that will help you out with information.
http://floridagardener.com/butterflies/butterflyplants.htm is the first I looked at. It has great suggestions, and a list of plants, too.
I live in the opposite corner of the country, with opposite weather, too, so I can't help from personal experience what would do well there, but I've had success with bee balm, hyssop, echinacea, dill, fennel and salvias. Wink

janezee

**llama momma** 10/29/2011, 9:43 am

Your nearest state agriculture college should have a cooperative extention service and pages of info that you could download. If you have a barnes and noble book store nearby, that could help too. Butterflies use Certain plants to lay eggs, others to get nectar, there is a lot of Know-how out there. Hope this helps!

Too Tall Tomatoes 10/29/2011, 10:05 am

The flower beds around the front of my house are lined with a blue flower called a plumbago and they attract butterflies. I've spotted several fluttering about those flowers. Here's a link if you're interested.

http://www.floridata.com/ref/p/plumbago.cfm

BackyardBirdGardner 10/29/2011, 12:18 pm

If there is a butterfly bush, or other attractant, within a city block of your house, you will likely have larvae on your veggies. I wouldn't let that stop me.

Most flowering/nectar producing plants love full sun. Design a bed, plant it, and watch the butterflies, bees, and hummers flock to it.

If it's close to the garden (meaning in the backyard, too), I would put a birdbath in the butterfly garden, too. That water source brings in birds that will be looking for larvae. If close to your SFG, the birds will poke through there and help you out, too. In fact, a bird bath near any SFG is a plus for this reason.

yuliad 10/29/2011, 6:50 pm

Thank you for the great ideas! thanks

kgreseth 11/1/2011, 11:53 am

I have a butterfly garden located not too far from my vegetables and I've been pretty successful keeping things to there proper areas when I plant the items the caterpillars like in my vegetable garden within the butterfly garden. Basically I have parsley planted within my pentas, mexican petunias, milkweed and echinacea. Not sure if that is what the experts would recommend but works pretty well for me. Even a couple of parsley in containers seems to help and doesn't distract from the look of the butterfly garden (at least not mine - it is all mixed up together so something is always in bloom). Hope that helps!

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