Binghamton Agway Farm & Home Store
145 Broad Avenue Binghamton, NY 13904
(607) 723-7409
bafeedback@binghamtonagway.com
 

Store Hours
Mon - Fri 8am - 8pm
Sat 8am - 6pm
Sun 8am - 5pm
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Butterfly Gardening -Build your own Butterfly Garden

 Adding the beauty and color of butterflies to your landscape can be an enjoyable and educational experience. A successful butterfly garden is one that contains all the components that butterflies need for food, shelter and breeding, while providing all the beauty and design that appeal to the gardener.

Beckoning Butterflies to Your Yard
Butterflies can feed in shade, but they must have sun to keep their bodies warm enough to fly. Butterflies can only fly effectively when their body temperature is about 85-100 degrees F. When the air is cooler, they will bask in the sun to warm themselves to effective flight temperature.

If your yard is basically shady, you can help butterflies by putting some flat, dark-colored stones or evergreen in spots that get early morning sun. Watch the butterflies as they use the sun-warmed stones and evergreen to absorb the heart and start flying earlier.

Provide Shelter
Build your butterfly garden in a location that is sheltered from the wind. This will help in two ways, butterflies are not cooled by breezes, and they do not have to expend extra energy fighting wind currents as the try to feed, mate and lay eggs. If possible a windbreak with tall shrubs, wines and trees.

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere
Next, grow sweetly scented flowers that produce nectar. Flower nectar is a primary food source for most butterflies. Butterflies, like most birds, take nectar from a wide variety of annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, vines and herbs.

Be sure your garden offers nectarine flowers throughout the blooming season so that butterflies can always find food. Also, grow nectar plants of varying heights – smaller species of butterflies tend to stay low, while larger species prefer to stay high when feeding.

When planting flowers, be sure to provide a variety that will be available from early summer to late fall. Group them together – given a choice, butterflies usually choose those that are most abundant. Some good plants to incorporate into your butterfly haven include butterfly bushes, asters, globe thistles, phloxes, coneflowers, marigolds, black-eyed Susans, lantanas, zinnias, rudbeckias, salvias and butterfly weeds.

Puddling
Butterflies like to drink and obtain essential nutrients and minerals from the moist areas around puddle water. Streams, ponds and small, shallow basins, either natural or artificial, are necessary assets to your butterfly garden.

Attractive Feeders
In addition to sweet nectar-producing plants, trees and flowers, Agway carries a wide variety of brightly colored specialty butterfly feeders and sweet-tasting nectar, too.

Hibernation House
When winter comes, some butterflies need to find a suitable place to hibernate. In addition to tree crevices, under bark or in log piles, you can provide a hibernation house. Hibernation houses have narrow, vertical holes cut into them that are small enough to keep predators out, but large enough for butterflies to enter and leave. Always place a hibernation house in a shady area of the garden so that butterflies will not become overheated inside.

A Natural Garden
A natural setting is both attractive and essential to butterflies well-being. Pesticides and herbicides should not be used in a butterfly garden.