Butterfly gardening

Attracting Butterflies to Your Garden

Nectar Plants and Food Plants
It's quite easy to attract butterflies to your garden. All you need to do is to grow the right plants and hope that the butterflies will find them! Butterflies are interested in two types of plants - nectar plants that provide the sweet fluid that butterflies need, and food plants that provide a place where the female butterfly will lay her eggs and provide the food that the caterpillars need. The pictures show a nectar plant and a food plant.

Image: 'Summer Monarch' www.flickr.com/photos/11114977@N00/315355199

Original image: 'Summer Monarch' by Prariedog www.flickr.com/photos/11114977@N00/315355199

Original image: 'Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar' www.flickr.com/photos/91084830@N00/225526128 by: Robin

Original image: 'Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar'by Robin www.flickr.com/photos/91084830@N00/225526128

Which Butterflies to Attract
Before starting your butterfly garden, find out which butterflies you might be able to attract. If you live in Adelaide, according to Grund's Data Sheet for Common Urban Butterflies, there are about 15 butterflies that you may be able to encourage to your garden. To see these butterflies on one page, print out the Some Common Adelaide Urban Butterflies images sheet using a colour printer. For more information on each of these butterflies click on to the images of the Common Urban Butterflies of Adelaide website.

Original image: 'alighted' by: Unknown www.flickr.com/photos/96586445@N00/35906793

Original image: 'untitled' by: Jesse Wagstaff www.flickr.com/photos/49503128117@N01/21944022

Planning your Garden
It is important to plan your garden. As most butterflies like the sun and dislike the wind, try to find a sunny, sheltered spot. Include some flat rocks where the butterflies can rest and sun themselves. Butterflies like puddling or sucking fluids from wet soil to obtain water and salts. You can create a puddling place in your garden by placing a shallow container in the soil and filling it up with course sand. Make sure you keep it moist. The pictures show a butterfly sunning and several butterflies puddling.

Types of Plants Needed
Before selecting plants, find out which plants the butterflies are attracted to. Caterpillars are very fussy eaters! Be prepared for your host plants to be chewed up and damaged!

The following websites provide useful information about butterfly gardening.

Butterfly Gardening Information Websites

Butterfly Gardening - South Australian Butterflies site. This section of the site provides some background information about butterfly gardening as well as data sheets on common urban butterflies and rarer urban butterflies.

Butterfly Fact Sheet - The Butterfly Conservation SA has a Fact Sheet entitled "Attracting butterflies to your garden". Information on how to obtain this sheet is on the website

Where have all the butterflies gone?
Click on to the brown square (diagram below) to find out about Adelaide's urban butterflies


Read the information and continue clicking onto the arrow and the

What should I plant to make a Butterfly Garden? - This website provides some good information about how to create a butterfly garden.

10 steps to a butterfly garden - This is a fact sheet from the Melbourne Zoo. Much of the information is also relevant to South Australia.

Learning Activities - A Butterfly Garden - This page outlines the steps to creating a butterfly garden and the suggests some learning activities associated with it.

Indigenous larval food plants for the Adelaide area.- This is a very detailed list of butterfly food plants for Adelaide and surrounding areas.

Butterflies - a list of useful links on Adelaide butterflies from the City of Prospect's Environment and Development section.

Growing Bush is an Adelaide plant nursery from which you can buy a gardening kit of local native plants to attract butterflies to your garden. There are several kits available.