By Lois Barber
My garden plan for this year is to set up an exclusively insect pollinator and butterfly garden in front of my kitchen window. While doing this, follow the directions to make sure there is no bird seed or plants that birds will attract so that the butterflies do not become food for our feathered friends.
And from personal experience, I recommend not placing birdhouses near your driveway and cars – birds are indigenous.
I have a bad track record with butterflies. A few years ago I built a drinking station for them with an extremely shallow bird bath filled with a layer of sand, water and pretty white quartz stones that rose above the water level as landing sites. I added clean water daily and fished out any leaves that might decompose and make the water toxic. Haven’t seen a butterfly drink from it, which is crazy because they keep drinking from the dirty mud puddle at the end of my driveway.
I bought a neat spiral pole on which I put a slice of orange or peach to attract the butterflies, and even lubricated the pole to make it harder for ants to climb. Only the ants loved it.
A few weeks ago I treated myself to a new butterfly house which, as the picture shows, has thin vertical slits through which butterflies can enter when trying to escape predators or the rain. I had a couple of butterfly houses years ago, filled them with sticks and bark as directed, and never saw a butterfly enter. Internet research found that a survey by the North American Butterfly Association found that none of the responding members had ever seen a butterfly using their homes. But I still hope.
This year I’m relying on both a butterfly bush and butterfly weed that I bought when I was clearing my local supermarket last summer – with the help of nature and maybe this year’s butterfly house, I might finally see a butterfly sipping at the drinking station I do made especially for her.
Lois Barber writes and photographs for a weekly garden column for the Republican American newspaper in Waterbury, CT.
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