Butterfly garden?

[MissAnn]

Have any of you ever planted one? I have a raised garden bed and I have planted vegetables in it previously. I am not a very good gardener so I thought maybe I would do better with flowers. What do you guys think?

[Springdaze]

we had a garden last year and my husband is hooked! I would like flowers but when I wrote to a seed company about flowers that dont attract bees, they suggested ornamental grass!:: I would be afraid of too many bees

[MissAnn]

we had a garden last year and my husband is hooked! I would like flowers but when I wrote to a seed company about flowers that dont attract bees, they suggested ornamental grass!:: I would be afraid of too many bees

I was wondering the same thing. I need something fool proof!

[Lyss]

we had a garden last year and my husband is hooked! I would like flowers but when I wrote to a seed company about flowers that dont attract bees, they suggested ornamental grass!:: I would be afraid of too many bees

:: I wish but unfortunately bees are necessity

We have a very large garden area, mainly fruits and veggies, but I do have an area of flowers in the back yard. I rarely have a bee issue with the flowers, we occasionally see one or two. The area that has the most bees is the "berry area" (raspberries, blackberries, blueberry bushes) but its usually when the plants are flowering or when the berries are overripe (we try to pick before this point) and never had a problem thankfully. For us the reward outweighs the risk, plus none of my DCKs have a bee allergy. We get a few butterflies but not a whole lot.

Last year we did the butterfly garden habitat thing (mail order larva turn to butterflies, I got it from a friend sans the box so I'm not sure what brand it is but I see them at walmart) and released them into the garden, not that we ever saw them again but we tried! ::

[Blackcat31]

We are like Lyss and have a HUGE garden. Several as a matter of fact. Veggie, flower, and fruit.

Unfortunately (or fortunately...however you view it) our gardens aren't at my daycare house, they are at my own house.

I have flowers and lots of flowering bushes at my daycare house and I think that they don't really attract butterflies or birds much because of the kids....

I have the same bushes and flowers at home and have TONS of butterflies and birds so the only thing I can think of different is the kids.

The kids are just noisy, loud and VERY busy which I think makes the butterflies/birds think twice about visiting. LOL!

I also have a man made river/creek running through my front yard and we have ALOT of birds and butterflies that stop and bathe in it. The running water sounds awesome while sleeping or relaxing on the patio too. VERY peaceful. It looks like this:

[CedarCreek]

^^ wow blackcat! That looks awesome and sooo relaxing!

[Blackcat31]

^^ wow blackcat! That looks awesome and sooo relaxing!

Thank you! It was my DH's "dream" to live by the river and when we bought our property there was no river so we made one! ::

We dug each and every rock out ourselves from all over our property and now when we travel anywhere it is a "must" to take a rock and bring it home and add it to the rest.

We have rocks from all over the country!

The little bridge was my DS's idea. Looking at the photo, my front door is just to the right so you have to cross the bridge to get there.

This summer we are landscaping the back yard and of course, DH wants some sort of water feature there too so we'll see what he comes up with. (I'm hoping hot tub...)

[MotherNature]

Butterflies like purple, red, yellow, & pink. Hummingbirds love red as well. Butterflies like having water available as well- a dish or birdbath is good. Buddleia attracts butterflies. Its common name is butterfly bush. Asters, thistles, lantana, as well. Here's a site that lists the nectar sources for different caterpillars/butterflies. http://butterflywebsite.com/butterflygardening.cfm

[SilverSabre25]

If you can, plant some milkweed and make a nice habitat for Monarchs They're struggling a bit, and milkweed is the ONLY plant they live on.

[MissAnn]

Thanks for all the help. Even though a butterfly garden will attract bees....I am still going to go for it. My kids are 3-5 years old and it's just one more life/nature lesson......just slowly walk away from the bee. Also, I have them wear tennis shoes all year long so stepping on bees won't be a problem. Excited and hope it wil look good....I am NOT a good gardener!

[itlw8]

diversity. the more different things you have the better. I would plant some daylillies, they come back every year and are hard to kill. columbine will also come back if you let it go to seed. the humming birds love it. purple cone flower attracts butter flies. put some parsely for the larva of dang forgot the name of that butterfly. marigolds are easy to grow. you can also mix some veggies in with the flowers.

Before you plant take the time to dig in a bunch of compost. It will make a huge difference.

[MissAnn]

diversity. the more different things you have the better. I would plant some daylillies, they come back every year and are hard to kill. columbine will also come back if you let it go to seed. the humming birds love it. purple cone flower attracts butter flies. put some parsely for the larva of dang forgot the name of that butterfly. marigolds are easy to grow. you can also mix some veggies in with the flowers.

Before you plant take the time to dig in a bunch of compost. It will make a huge difference.

I will have to make a list! This is great!

I have a rolling compost bin and we have compost almost ready now. My neighbors said to put sand in the soil too. Not sure what that's for. I feel like I need Idiots Guide to Gardening or something like that! No, I need to hire someone to just tell us what to do! Diagnose my garden. I don't understand about tomatoes. They go everywhere and get so tangled up and then don't grow very many.....at least for me! Yes, I get one of those wire things that I tie the tomatoes to to keep them up off the ground. What veggies are really dummy proof that you can plant with flowers????

[SquirrellyMama]

We planted a butterfly garden a few years back. It took a couple of years for us to really see the result. Two years ago we had probably 40 monarch caterpillars in our garden. We would catch some and raise them in our butterfly hut. We had a lot of fun with it. We gave quite a few away also.

We went to the state fair that same year and found that they were selling monarch caterpillars for $5 each. We were giving ours away.

K