Butterflies are indeed pretty as flowers plus they help pollinate plants whilst they feed on the nectar. Most species of butterflies don’t have caterpillars that eat our crops so we should be encouraging these pretty pollinators in our gardens. As the Big Butterfly Count has just started, I thought I’d find out just what we can do.
Apart from them looking really, really pretty that is! Butterflies pollinate plants as they drink their nectar. Since a butterflies’ legs and proboscis are further away from their body than those of bees, they are not quite so good at pollinating our plants. But they can fly further and so help ensure our native wildflowers grow in lots of places for lots of us to see. Also they can help reduce the effect of bee diseases on pollination.
From July 17th there has been a big butterfly study carried out by people like you and me all over the country. Last year a massive 44,000 people took part. It’s called the Big Butterfly Count and will find out how healthy nature is. Butterflies react really quickly to changes in our environment so they are great at warning us early of problems. Also it is good to know if any types of butterflies need more help from us so we can make sure they get back to being happy. To take part you just need to try to sit still somewhere nice and sunny (so the hardest part will be finding sunshine in Scotland then!) for 15 minutes. Then count how many of each different type of butterfly you see. Once you know what type of butterflies you saw you can input your results into the Big Butterfly Count website. Your work will still count even if you don’t see a single butterfly. If you’re aged between 5 and 10 you can take part in the Count at Jupiter Urban Wildlife Centre on Wednesday July 29th. The Big Butterfly Count runs until 9th August.
I’m taking part so why don’t you?
There are 59 different types of British butterflies. But Red Admiral, Peacock, Brimstone, Painted Lady, Comma, Green-veined White, Small Tortoiseshell, Small Cabbage White and Large Cabbage White are the butterflies you’re most likely to see in your garden.To see more butterflies you should plant a range of flowers and herbs to provide them with nectar from March until October. Basically butterflies like bright colours and flowers that provide big landing sites for them. They like you to leave any over-ripe fruit that falls from your trees on the ground so they can feed on the fruit juices. Mummy butterflies also need somewhere to lay their eggs. As silly as it may seem, leaving a bit of your garden to grow weeds in is a great help! Red Admirals love to lay their eggs on stinging nettles and Painted Ladies will lay eggs on thistles. And of course the caterpillars are very hungry when they first hatch so they will munch on these weeds.
So the bad bit of encouraging butterflies is caterpillars. But they are very picky about what they eat and it is only really the Large and Small Cabbage White varieties that like to eat crops that we grow. They love cabbages and other brassicas (like broccoli) and nasturtiums. So if you don’t like eating either of those, don’t grow them and you’ll not get any pesky caterpillars trying to eat your food! Just by growing some nasturtiums beside your brassicas can save your crops as nasturtiums are butterflies favourite food (I prefer ice cream myself!) Or you can be very careful about looking out for little clusters of round yellow eggs on leaves and stems. Just remove these before they hatch into caterpillars. Or you can use insect barrier mesh over your veg beds. Be careful that the mesh doesn’t touch any leaves as abbage White butterflies can lay their eggs through mesh onto any touching leaves. You could also use teeny, tiny worms called nematodes or really small wasps that are both natural ways to kill caterpillars.
Butterflies don’t live for very long so how about making a caterpillar that changes into a butterfly for you to keep for ever?
You’ll need:
My caterpillar is going be lovely and bright
Roll up both halves of one pipe cleaner to make 2 antennas and insert these above the googly eyes.
This caterpillar is almost as hungry as I always am!
The caterpillar will have a lovely nap in his cosy cocoon
The next day remove cocoon and use the other pipecleaner to fix the wings to the body. Unravel the antenna a bit.
Look what I found when I came down to breakfast!
Thanks “Local Fun for Kids” for the idea.
Right, It’s sunny outside so I’m off to count butterflies! If you want to find out more about the different butterflies you can find in your garden have a look at the fab UK butterflies website. They have loads of great photos.
Big hugs,
Euan
I love butterflies (unlike my Auntie Kathleen!) They are so pretty and great for the garden too. This week we have been releasing butterflies at nursery which is great fun. In my latest blog I tell you some fluttery facts as well as three (yes three) cool butterfly related things I have been doing in my garden. Come on, join in…
Now, we have all heard that butterflies are good for the garden and we should try and encourage them in. But do you know why?
Upcycle Your Own Butterfly Garden
M&D love to do a bit of upcycling and I have decided to have a go myself. Daddy recently had to replace the wheels on his trailer. He used the old tyres to make this funky container for our deck:
The tyres were turned into a funky planter
So we were left with the wheel rims and I was sure we could do something cool with them too. We turned them upside down, found a pot which fitted perfectly in the hole in the middle and then filled the pot and the ridge of the wheel with compost.
We sowed butterfly seeds in the rims!
We got a packet of butterfly seeds and sowed these and waited for the magic to happen. We didn’t have to wait long – soon our wheels were filled with pretty flowers to attract both bees and butterflies!
The wonderfully clever people at kabloom make really cool “seedboms”. Not only do you get to throw a bomb in your garden (that doesn’t happen every fay, does it?!) it is filled with lots of lovely seeds which grow into pretty flowers which attract butterflies.
Kabloom have a great range of different types of “bombs” and they make lovely gifts too. You can even buy a catapult to sling your bomb with – cooooool! I will be telling you more about the “Catnipbom” in a future blog.
Anyone who knows me knows I love a good ole craft project. And what better than to take advantage of this lovely summery weather and to make it in the garden. Here’s how:
You will need:
Our pretty butterflies in the sunshine
So, have I persuaded you to love the butterfly yet Auntie Kathleen?…