Butterflies

Welcome to our course on butterfly gardens. Butterflies are beautiful and delightful members of the insect family, not only fun to watch, but also to raise. For those interested in observing and enjoying numerous butterfly species, there’s no better way to attract them than to create a butterfly garden. Throughout this course, students will learn how to attract butterflies based on their species and focusing on planting the types of flowers they prefer. Creating butterfly-friendly habitats means designing an eco-friendly butterfly garden that provides butterflies with adequate sources of food, sunlight, and shelter.

When considering a butterfly garden, students will also learn different approaches to raising butterflies and how to care for them at all stages of development. A variety of feeding methods will be explored, as will the importance of choosing the right kind of plants and flowers that produce life-giving nectar. In addition, students will learn how to watch for and identify a variety of butterfly behaviors including feeding, basking, and mating.

A butterfly garden requires not only routine grounds maintenance, but also considerations for providing butterflies with a variety of housing options, feeders, and protection against pests and predators. While butterflies are perfectly capable of surviving in a wild environment, it never hurts to provide them with a backup, and we’ll offer several easy and inexpensive ways to provide shelter, food, and water for your butterflies.

Students are encouraged to use their own imagination when creating a butterfly garden, but we’ll also provide a brief description of some of the most popular butterfly gardens and exhibits in the United States to get you started. This course on butterfly gardens concludes with the basics of raising taxa-specific butterflies, including some of the most popular species found throughout the United States.