How to Find Out Where Butterflies Live

Do you ever wonder where butterflies live in your garden? Butterflies search out areas of shelter from summer storms of rain and high winds. One of the most essential aspects of your garden is having trees and shrubbery to offer them protective shelter.

On warm sunny summer days, butterflies enjoy the wide-open spaces in your garden and lawn

The areas that are most attractive to butterflies are those places where they can find food for their offspring. Caterpillars eat plants, while the adult butterfly will sip flower nectar. As your flowers, plants shrubs and trees mature, you will attract even more butterflies into your garden. Any flowers and plants in your garden this year will attract just a few butterflies, however as the years pass the butterflies will instinctively return to your garden.

Butterflies require lots of water; therefore, you should maintain a damp mud puddle in a sunny area. On the other hand, you can fill a bucket full of sand and just enough water to keep the sand moist. Every now and again, saturate the sand to keep it moist. You may even consider burying the bucket in the ground and then surround it with small rocks for aesthetic purposes. Male butterflies are especially fond of patches of wet dirt or sand. This behavior is puddling, since they sip minerals and salt from the wet sand. These minerals then pass on into the sperm sack during mating season to fertilize the eggs.

You can encourage butterflies to return to your yard every year by creating a safe area for them to inhabit. Butterflies will instinctively return to those areas, which they feel they are safe, often they enjoy areas where wide-open spaces meet with the tree line. You can lure these dainty and graceful creatures into your garden if you plant your butterfly garden in an area surrounded by trees or near trees. Consider planting hedges and groups of shrubbery and small trees or fences, walls and vine covered trellises.

Butterflies find soft sandy soil truly delightful, since this type of soil allows water to puddle up after rainstorms. You can easily observe the various life cycle stages from the caterpillar to the adult butterfly when you establish a butterfly garden. Butterflies naturally have no need of any expensive or fancy surroundings. They are quite at home in large, open sunny areas with flowers and other plants as well as puddles and rocks. This provides food sources and shelter for both the caterpillars and the adults. If you enjoy herbs as many butterflies do, you may consider planting an herb garden. Now you know the right type of location and planning you need to do to attract butterflies to your garden. Your next step will be figuring out which type of plants you want to include, so you can attract these beautiful creatures into your life.