Plants for Butterflies

Posted on by Gillian

One of my plans this year was to attract more Butterflies to our garden. We are very lucky and already have a very wildlife friendly garden with wild creatures spilling in from neighbouring hedgerows, fields and woodlands. For the past 13 years we have planted hedges, gardened organically (zero chemicals) and provided food, fresh water and shelter for insects, birds and mammals. Despite all our efforts we have noticed that the number of visiting Butterflies has been falling each year. Declining numbers of Butterflies seems to be a UK wide problem for a variety of reasons ranging from adverse weather conditions to loss of habitat and food plants for adults and caterpillars.

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How to Attract Butterflies

Posted on by Gillian

I’m making a few changes to our garden to encourage butterflies to spend some time here. Many of our butterfly species have falling numbers and that bothers me a great deal. It’s likely that environmental changes such as housing construction and road building plus farming methods and land management have all affected the habitat and food supply that our butterflies need. There’s not much I can do about all of that in the wider environment but I can make some changes here in our own garden which may be useful to them.

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