A British butterfly garden?

Your garden can easily be cultivated to attract butterflies. They like grassy corners and high wild hedgerows with evergreens and ivy and here they will establish themselves. By providing flowers and colour, you will attract them to the flowerbeds for nectar. Your choice of flowers is important and provision needs to be made from spring until autumn. Try to include wild flowers in surrounding areas and provide sheltered spots with hedges or fences covered in evergreens and ivy. Don't forget that butterflies need food plants for their caterpillars, so a wild patch with stinging nettles and thistles will tempt a few to breed in your garden.

Here is a list of useful plants with flowering period:

Alyssum
Wallflower
Aubrietia
Polyanthus - Spring
Sweet Rocket
Thrift
Valerian
Lavender
Sweet William - Summer
Mignonette
Hyssop
Phlox
Buddleia
Verbena
Cornflower
Echium - Late Summer & Autumn
Heliotrope - Late Summer & Autumn
Aster
Golden Rod
Michaelmas Daisy
Sedum Spectacle

Some British Butterflies and their food plants
 

Butterflies depend upon certain food plants or specialised habitats for their survival. Many areas in our gardens, parks or schools could provide new habitats, if planted and managed correctly. British butterflies can be encouraged into both urban and rural gardens once their basic needs have been catered for.

Firstly, food must be provided for the adult butterfly, who feeds on nectar. This is produced by flowering plants, but only certain flower shapes are suitable. The butterfly must be able to probe the flower head with its tube-like tongue and suck up the nectar. Suitable nectar sources can be found in both wild and cultivated plants.

A well-planned butterfly garden should provide a wild garden area separate from the more formal garden where the cultivated plants would be found. This wild area will be most important too in encouraging butterflies to breed. For in its short life, the female butterfly must mate and lay her eggs to guarantee survival of the species. She will only lay on the correct food plant for her caterpillars to be reared on. She knows instinctively which plant this is and for many British butterflies, these food plants are wild ones often called 'weeds' and frequently sprayed by the gardener!

 

Plants for nectar, in the formal or wild garden, should be planted in sunny position and in soil which does not dry out too much in hot weather. Wild flowers and grasses do not need rich soil (no fertiliser) and should be left to seed and spread freely over the years with an annual mowing. Further details regarding successful cultivation of these plants and a more extensive list of nectar sources can be found in a book called 'The Butterfly Gardener', by Miriam Rothschild & Clive Farrell (ISBN 0 7181 2258 5).

Some species may still not come naturally to your garden, they require more specialised habitats e.g. chalk downloads or marshlands. More common species can be bred in captivity and both livestock supply and rearing instructions can be obtained from The Butterfly Jungle.