More About Butterly Gardening
By Nicky Pilkington, Tue Jan 10th

When creating a butterfly garden, the possibilities of what toinclude in your butterfly garden design are endless. Below aresome suggestions to help get you started. They are designed tospark the creative process of your mind and get you started onyour way to creating a lovely butterfly garden.

Before you even begin your butterfly garden, find out whichspecies of butterflies are in your area. Consider taking anexploratory hike around your location with a butterflyidentification book. This may take a little extra time andeffort, but the results will be worth it. After you havecompiled your list of local butterfly species, be sure to writedown in your butterfly garden plan what these particular speciesof butterflies use for nectar and food plants.

Be sure that your garden is in a location that provides at leastsix hours of sunlight per day. Butterflies are cold-bloodedcreatures and therefore do better where they are warm andsheltered.

Wind can be a butterfly's worst enemy so be sure to have plentyof

wind protection in your design. You can plant tall shrubs andother plants in order to create a wind break, but a locationthat avoids heavy winds is even better.

The best of all would be a butterfly garden placed on the sunnyside of your home with windbreaks on both the west and eastsides, or wherever the prevailing wonds come from in your area.Try and locate your garden close to a window so you can view thebutterflies from indoors. Provide seating outside too.

If possible, you could excavate an area and build a stone wallaround it. This would create the ideal windbreak for yourbutterflies. Mmake gravel pathways around your garden to savewalking in mud.

There are many creative ways for constructing a butterflygarden. Take your time to design a garden that you will enjoyand be proud of.

About the author:Find more about gardeningand some useful gardeningtips at AboutGardening