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ATTRACTING BUTTERFLIES

If you want to attract butterflies to your garden, plant these flowers:  zinnias, phlox, coreopsis, "Autumn Joy" sedum, cosmos, butterfly weed.  Milkweed, dill, and fennel are favorite foods of butterfly larvae.  Butterfly houses are for sale in garden catalogs and nurseries, but butterflies can fend for themselves in any garden where there are flowers, shrubs, and trees. Butterflies also love buddleia, called appropriately "Butterfly Bush."  This is a lovely shrub with purple, pink, or white clusters of fragrant flowers that bloom May through August, depending on the variety. Buddleia is easy to grow, blooming on growth of the current year.  Some Buddleia bushes can reach a height of fifteen feet in one season.  You'll need to cut the vigorous branches back severely in the fall or early spring to encourage more branching and flower production. Butterfly Encounters is encouraging everyone to plant Milkweed in their gardens because it is the only plant that the Monarch butterfly can lay their eggs on.  With all the development that occurs in the United States the Monarch has lost much of its habitat.  By planting Milkweed seeds it helps to replenish habitat that has been lost.

LINKS

Butterfly World

The Butterfly Pavillion and Insect Center

Butterfly Zone

The Butterfly Place

Butterfly Mystique

The Butterfly Farm

Birds aren't the only ones who fly south for the winter.  Monarch butterflies do, too.  These amazing insects may travel in flocks stretching for miles, and trek as far as 1,800 miles to find warmer climates.  Major flyways include the Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.  Eastern and midwestern groups fly to Mexican fire forests.  Western flocks travel to the California coasts, where they overwinter in eucalyptus, Monterey pine, and Monterey cypress groves.

Butterfly boxes offer shelter for hibernating butterflies, although you may find that they prefer more natural sites.  To encourage butterflies to use your butterfly box line it with tree bark from fallen logs.

A day is lost if one has not laughed - French Proverb

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