| Attracting birds and butterflies to your garden or landscape not only adds ambiance, but also helps our environment. Gardens that are filled with birds and butterflies (even at their munching-caterpillar stage) are filled with life! Birds play an important role in the garden, eating aphids and beetles; although not as effective as bees, butterflies are important for pollination. |
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| So, how do we attract nature’s beauties to our landscape? It’s simple if we follow these 3 steps: | 1) Get rid of the pesticides and herbicides.
Although they may be effective in eliminating “bad bugs” or undesirable pests, they also kill off the “good bugs” and bees. By creating a habitat where beneficial insects can thrive and increase their populations, the need for pesticides will eventually diminish. | | When you’re tired of the flowers in your containers dying
Don’t despair! Meet a simple solution: the Flower Carpet rose. Plunk this beauty into a container-and it will last for years! See 10 colorful photos illustrating how Flower Carpet works in containers. Never get container-envy again! | | | 2) Create a bird and butterfly friendly habitat.
A habitat, as we learned in grammar school, is a place that provides everything needed to survive, including shelter, water, sunlight, and food. | | - Shelter: Trees and shrubs, deck overhangs, vines growing along a trellis or fence, and bird and butterfly houses all provide shelter for wildlife. You’ll find more about shelter plants below.
- Water: Birdbaths, ponds, and water features are the most common ways to provide water, but even a shallow dish filled with water and placed in an accessible area can attract both birds and butterflies. Place a few rocks above the water level to give birds and butterflies a place to land.
- Sunlight: Butterflies need the warmth of the sun to prepare their wings for flight, and birds need it to determine their sleep, reproductive, and molting cycles and ultimately their migration cycles. Fortunately, sunlight is probably the most easily achieved addition to any landscape.
- Food: We’ll talk about specific bird- and butterfly-attracting plants a little further on. To start with, though, birds generally eat insects and seeds, so in the fall, leaving the seedpods on plants like black-eyed Susans, thistle, and echinacea provides winterlong food and will help to keep the birds close by. Caterpillars and larva that ultimately turn into butterflies need plants to feed on, too. So, rather than having them eat plants that you love, plant some “host” plants in an out-of the way place for them. The larvae are a bit more choosy than adult butterflies when it comes to food. They like milkweed, ‘Husker Red’ penstemon, turtlehead, pawpaws, passion vines, passion fruit, and even parsley and dill!
| | 3) Choose the right plants.
This is the critical factor and the key to success. There are any number of lists of bird- and butterfly-attracting plants available on the Web, including a comprehensive listing on the National Wildlife Federation’s website. All you need to do is refer to one of these when you’re selecting plants for your new garden (or hunting down some interesting additions to your existing landscape). It’s not hard to do; it’s just one more thing to think about when you’re making your selections.
As a starter, native plants are best for attracting native species of butterflies and birds as well, regardless of where you live. Wildlife-attracting plants that are generally grown across the U.S. include hollyhocks, daylilies, thistle, coneflowers, bee balm, black-eyed Susan, morning glories, hibiscus, salvias, butterflyweed (Asclepias) and tickseed (Coreopsis). Volcano® garden phlox, which are hardy in Zones 4–10, are butterfly and hummingbird favorites (especially the bright pink, red and purple varieties). | | Limited space? Don’t despair—you can still attract birds and butterflies if you provide nectar-filled plants. Both hummingbirds and butterflies are attracted to red, yellow, orange, pink, and purple blossoms. So, create container gardens using a variety of easy-care flowering plants like lantana, salvias, gaillardia (blanket flower), bacopa, petunias, snapdragons, and hibiscus. All 3 varieties of Tropicanna® cannas are great not only because of their bright orange or red blossoms but also because their exotic, multicolor, striped foliage is beautiful all season long, even when the plants aren’t blooming. They’re also great in ponds or water features.
Plants that provide shelter are also crucial to attracting wildlife to the garden. Depending on the amount of space that you have, adding a few trees—particularly flowering and/or fruit-bearing trees—can be extremely helpful in creating an ideal habitat for birds and butterflies (not to mention bees and even insect-devouring bats). No trees? Just add a few bird houses along a fence line. | | Plant a honeysuckle, clematis, trumpet vine, or even annual morning glories up or over a fence, and you’ll provide not only a source for nectar feeders but also some safe nesting sites. You’ll also add visual interest to your landscape.
Other shelter-providing plants include flowering small trees and shrubs like weigela, false indigo, fringe trees (Chionanthus virginicus), azaleas, and even low-growing landscape roses like Flower Carpet roses, which also create shelter for birds and nectar for bees. Flower Carpet was the first “eco-rose” introduced in the U.S. 20 years ago. They’re particularly good for wildlife habitats because they don’t need any chemicals or pesticides to keep them blooming and performing for months on end. They’re also very easy-care and don’t require any fancy pruning—they just need to be cut back each spring. They come in 10 different colors, and the newest varieties (Amber, Scarlet, and Pink Supreme) were bred for even more heat and humidity tolerance. | | | These are incredibly simple steps that will make a profound difference for any garden and those enjoying it. Sharing your outdoor space with other living things adds a dimension that will have you hooked before you realize it! |
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| | © 2018 Yankee Publishing Inc. All rights reserved.
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