Butterflies in my flower border (General Garden)

Member Name: mumsymary

Product:	General Garden
Date:	18/04/02 (562 review reads)
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Advantages: pleasure, helping wildlife

Disadvantages: none

Butterflies in my flower borders

Here I sit in my garden on a sunny afternoon. Watching butterflies visiting flowers to feast on nectar. I have described my wildflower lawn in a previous opinion. Now I shall tell you about the garden flowers I grow to attract butterflies. One of the most successful plants is of course the Buddleia. I have several growing in my garden .The most visited by butterflies is the Buddleia Davidi, but there are other flowers that the butterflies like to visit for a feast of nectar. Most of the flowers that attract butterflies are simple, single flowered varieties.

I apologise for writing this as a list. I tried other ways and the list was best. The list below is of the flowering times of the flowers I grow in my borders to attract butterflies.

Flower name Flowering time

Yellow primrose March April
Grape Hyacinth March May
Honesty March April
Candytuft May August
Ice plant June October
Helychrisum June August
Dames violet June August
Red valerian June August
Sweet William June September
Lavender July September
Michelmas daisies September October

There is a bonus as the caterpillars of Green veined White and Orange tip butterflies, eat the leaves and seed cases (respectively) of both Dames Violet and Honesty. So they can feed and breed in the border. Quite a few of the others breed in the garden too but not on the flowers (should I write another op?).


Now a list of butterflies that I have seen using these plants to nectar (feed) from in my garden

Butterfly name Flying time in my garden

Peacock March - August
Holly Blue March - September
Tortoiseshell March - October
Comma March - October
Large White March - October
Small White March - October
Large White March - October
Brimstone March - October
Orange Tip April - July

Green Veined White April - September
Speckled Wood April - October
Small Copper April - October
Red Admiral April - November
Common Blue May - September
Marbled White June - July
Gatekeeper June - August
Large Skipper June - August
Meadow Brown June - September
Clouded Yellow June - September
Painted Lady June - October

Butterflies seem to prefer to visit where a lot of the same flowers are together. Not just a single flower, bit like I would choose to eat a whole bar of chocolate not just one piece. They also prefer flowers growing in the sun and out of the wind.
The biggest factor to how many butterflies will fly in your garden is where you live. More butterflies visit in the south than the north of the country (sorry). It?s just not warm enough in the north, you do not get enough sunshine. If you live in a town you will see less than the countryside and of course if you live next to a nature reserve you will see most, as they tend to pop over the hedge!

The butterflies above regularly visit my flower garden and they love the oregano /marjoram in my herb garden even more. They also prefer a whole range of plants you would call weeds, but that?s another story. Enjoy your garden and the butterflies in it this summer.

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