Attract butterflies to your garden!
Threatened because their natural habitat is dwindling, and because of pesticides, butterflies can find refuge in our very own gardens, provided a special space is available to them and that their favorite plants are grown.
Butterflies are carried away when there’s too much wind and they need sun. Apart from flower beds, they will rejoice in finding mixed hedges especially in urban spaces where there aren’t any. Include thorny hedges (hawthorn, blackthorn), shrub beds (butterfly bush) and fruit trees.
They will also find a shallow water dispenser refreshing. Toss in an occasional slice of orange to sweeten the water!
Sweet William, catnip (“catgrass”), eupatorium, lavender, cosmos, masterwort, gaillardia, pincushion flower, mallow, cornflower, Argentinian vervain, thistle, campion, rudbeckia, larkspur, purple coneflower, foxglove, daisy, ragwort, ornamental onion, sage, autumn aster, horseheal, marigold, common hedgenettle, knapweed, cinquefoil…Night moths are twenty times more numerous than day butterflies! Some of them can be spotted flying during the daytime, such as the hummingbird hawk-moth which gardeners recognize after seeing it hover in stationary flight to unfurl its long feeding proboscis. Specifically, the antenna are what helps distinguish moths from their daytime cousins.
Remember to mark out some space for plants that feed the caterpillars:
The Noé Conservation Charity launched a joint project with the National Museum of Natural History (France) called the “Garden butterfly observatory” that citizens can join. To contribute, simply learn to identify a few of the 28 most common species.
By C. Levesque
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