Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen from Vanveen bulbs dot com. And we are learning all about butterfly
gardens and how to create a butterfly garden. Now we all love butterflies in our garden,
they are so beautiful they come in so many different colors, and shapes and sizes. And
they are one of the joys of having a garden, is just sitting in a nice summer day and looking
at the beautiful butterflies that come our way. But there are a lot of flowers that you
can put into your garden that will invite them. And that will make them come back year
after year. So the most important part of the butterfly garden is having some leafy
plants. Having ferns, having shrubs, having any kind of plants that the caterpillar when
they are babies, butterflies are born, they need a place to live. And so you need an area
where it's wild areas around you or some ferns or some Hostas or Hydrangeas, somewhere where
the babies can live until they become butterflies. That's the most important thing, that's number
one. You need a place for the babies. And I found the difference between the hummingbird
plants and a butterfly plant is the difference in the shape. Butterflies like fluffy flowers,
they like the pollen. Something that is easy to get to the pollen. They don't want tubular
flowers like the hummingbirds. Hummingbirds love the tubes. They love to have a tube to
go into. Where as the butterflies they like the fluff. They seem to love this Leatrice
or Gay feather. It's just a beautiful plant, it has nice green foliage and purple flowers
that come up and the hummingbirds just don't really care about it. But the butterflies
love it. And so it's a great plant to have in your yard. so as you can notice on this
Lavender bush, the butterflies are going crazy. They love my lavender. They are all over it
all the time. It's probably my number one butterfly plant in my yard. They just love
it. They also love this Black Eyed Susan or Rudbeckia, they love it too. Look at how they
just love the little, I think it's the color and the shape and the pollen that they can
easily get off the top. They don't want to have to reach for their pollen, they want
the pollen to be out their for them to grab. So a nice summer day, see how they are just
so tame. I just love my butterflies. And it really gives me a sense that this is part
of my garden and they are here with me. So there's all types of flowers that the butterflies
love. They love my leatrice they love my Rudbeckia, or the Black Eyed Susans and they love the
lavender. They love my Crocosmias, they love all the other bulb plants too. They love Eucalyptus.
They seem to like, especially the new growth on the Eucalyptus because it gives them a
place to hide out. In my butterfly garden, I try not to use any chemicals at all. And
it's hard because I have slugs that are eating up a lot of my plants. But I'm thinking if
I put slug bait out, whether it's a variety that is good for the environment or breaks
down or not, it is intended to kill slugs. But what happens, it kills the caterpillars
too. It kills the butterflies. So even using slug bait ,could potentially kill a lot of
the other insects that you want in your yard. So be very careful when using any chemicals.
And I can live with a few slug bites because in return I get these beautiful butterflies
in my garden. They love sun and they need also another big thing that they need is some
water. Whether I have water features or just I've got this little cement leaf down here
with a little bit of water in it. They want mud or a little bit of water. Cause they really
need some kind of a moisture because they drink water just like we do. Without water
they won't survive. Having a garden is one of the most rewarding parts of my life. I
love it. And to have a home where I can invite butterflies and hummingbirds to join me and
my every day gardening it's just a joy. So it's easy to have a butterfly garden. You
don't have a big yard, you can just have a little container with a few butterfly plants,
that's all they need. So enjoy your garden.