A lawn without flower heads looks beautifully lush green, but it offers little food for butterflies and other endangered insects. But it is not at all difficult to offer the animals a new home and, with the right plants, even to lure protected species into your own greenery.

Butterflies love coneflowers

Clutter can also have a place in the garden

If you want to attract butterflies, you should move away from the idea of a golf course and a neatly tidy garden. Stinging nettles, which are allowed to grow behind the compost, or a flower meadow that is only rarely mowed, serve as a nursery for the caterpillars and provide food for a wide variety of butterfly species thanks to their variety of flowers. Do not clear away all the fallen fruit, as the fermenting fruit is very popular with many species of insects and butterflies.

What should a butterfly garden look like?

The rules for designing a butterfly-friendly garden result from the life cycle of the butterflies. The pretty animals reproduce in the summer months. They hibernate in sheltered places or retreat to warmer regions in autumn.

  • So make sure you have a richly laid table from early spring through to autumn.
  • Make sure that the butterflies that have already settled can find suitable food plants for their offspring. Stinging nettles, for example, are extremely popular with local butterflies.
  • Offer the animals winter quarters. You don't have to do a lot of work to do this. Protected places on or in the garden shed are often used for the winter.

The most beautiful butterfly plants

The depth of the flowers of many typical cottage garden perennials corresponds exactly to the length of the proboscis of the moth, so that they can easily reach the food. When buying, look for single-flowering species, because insects have easier access to the nectar with them.

The colorful garden dwellers like to settle down on the following plants:

  • globe thistle
  • asters
  • loosestrife
  • sedum
  • coneflower
  • spur flower.

Also shrubs like

  • Honeysuckle,
  • panicle hydrangea,
  • Buddleia
  • elder

provide valuable food for the delicate animals.

Do not cut off all the flowers in the herb bed, because lavender, oregano or thyme are also popular food plants. In addition, sow flowers such as bee friend, nasturtium and marigold. Pay attention to a varied bed design, so butterflies and bees will always find a source of food.

tips

If space permits, you can create a small butterfly biotope with a wildflower bed. The seed mixtures available in specialist shops can also simply be sown in a flower pot or flower box (€16.99).

Category:

Animals in the garden