by Elizabeth Shaheen
The floating flowers of the garden never fail to stop me in my path and I try, often in vain, to follow their course to see which flower is the day’s chosen potion. Their aerial prenuptial is a mesmerising ritual, which can’t fail to soften the heart and fill one with wonder at their vibrant colours and graceful beauty.
Providing a haven for butterflies will not only give you the opportunity to see these ethereal creatures up close and a chance to observe their behaviour, but it also contributes to their conservation.
It is no hard task to increase the number and variety of butterflies in your garden.
In order to provide a butterfly sanctuary, simply provide the necessary resources for each life stage: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis) and adult (butterfly).
It is regrettable that many gardeners consider caterpillars pests.
When you come across one, rather than immediately kill it, take time out and observe it for at least awhile and try to forget that it’s feeding off your precious leaves.
You will discover that it is an entrancing stage of the butterfly’s lifecycle and, hopefully, resist the temptation to kill it.
Many gardeners fail to appreciate that where there are host plants and caterpillars, there in time will be butterflies.
Grow the plants specific to the needs of the caterpillars and the adult butterfly and look for seed packets of flowers that target butterflies.
Plants with varying blooming cycles can be planted together to keep an ever-ready food supply throughout the season.
Plan your butterfly garden sympathetically. Generally, butterfly habitats include several layers with a variety of plants at differing heights.
To imitate nature’s multi-layered planting scheme, you should include plants that bloom at various heights, as well as small flowering shrubs that provide twigs as resting places and also as lookouts where they can watch for suitors.
Climbing plants offer blooms at various heights, so you might consider growing some.
The size of a butterfly garden can be diverse, from a small window box to an area set aside in your own landscaped garden or a wild, untamed area of your garden left to do as it pleases and invite into it as much wildlife that cares to visit it.
Become aware of the types of butterflies in your area, the type of food the caterpillars like to eat and the kind of nectar plants required for the adult butterflies, who will continuously return if they find in your garden the appropriate plants to lay their eggs on.
They go more for patches with a variety of plants rather than a single plant bearing a few flowers.
Try to reduce or eliminate your lawn, which offers nothing to wildlife and uses precious water.
Some insects have large ranges and travel long distances, but many butterflies spend their entire short lives in areas not much larger than an average sized garden and they are particularly sensitive to our actions.
Be mindful of the amount of insecticides and herbicides you use and try to cut them out entirely.
Instead, rely on Mother Nature’s own garden predators to keep your garden pests under control.
Generally, insecticides and herbicides are not compatible with attracting and increasing the number of butterflies in a garden – most kill caterpillars and butterflies just resting on a treated area or flower.
The organic garden is the perfect place for butterflies to unwind.
Keep in mind when you are using chemicals in the garden that if it is going to kill the larvae, your butterfly population is going to decline drastically.
The butterfly will only revisit your garden after hatching from the larvae that nature’s life cycle has left in your garden.
If you study the behaviour of butterflies, you will discover that they go for flowers in sunny situations and rest on rocks and stone walls to bask in the sun.
It would be extremely beneficial to these creatures if you were to provide shelter for them from wind and rain.
You can achieve this by planting a shrubbery and brush piles and leaving fallen leaves where the caterpillars can contentedly pupate.
Another way would be to invest in a butterfly house, which has slits wide enough to let the butterflies enter, but small enough to keep the birds out.
Keep a nectar source in close proximity to the house to lure them inside.
I remember seeing on a butterfly farm we visited on Koh Samui, a Robinson Crusoe island in Thailand, red hibiscus flowers and saucers of liquid-sugar strewn everywhere as open-air cafés for the butterflies from which to drink.
Provide a damp salty patch that will attract groups of butterflies – they love to puddle in rainwater and sip fluids and salt from wet soil.
On chilly mornings, they bask on rocks and stone walls to warm up before performing their aerial ballet. Males protect their territory by chasing off competing males, while females perform complex rituals before deciding where to lay their eggs.
Most butterflies have specific food plants in mind for the immature caterpillar stage.
For example, the caterpillar of the Monarch Butterfly develops only on milkweed and the mature adult Monarch enjoys the nectar from many flowers – including cosmos, Canadian thistle, lantana and Buddleja.
The Painted Lady will seek out thistle, hollyhock and sunflowers for their immature caterpillar stage and at maturity enjoys zinnia, alfalfa, cosmos and many others.
Both fragrance and colour will draw the butterfly to your garden. The scent from the flower must be strong to attract the butterfly.
Flowers that are good choices for attracting butterflies to Bahrain’s gardens are: Aster, Monarda, Buddleja davidii (butterfly bush) Gaillardia, Asclepias (milkweeds), Cosmos, ornamental thistles, Helianthus (sunflower), Lathyrus ordoratus (sweet pea), Zinnia, Verbena, Centaurea nigra (hardheads), Centaurea cyanus (cornflower), Chrysanthemum leucanthemum (ox eye daisy), Achillea millefolium (yarrow), Knautia arvensis (field scabious), dill (Anethum graveolens), Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia), Phlox, Valerian, marigolds (Tagetes), black eyed Susan (Rudbeckias, Thunbergias, lavender (Lavandula), Sage (Salvias) and many, many more.
The size of the flower is immaterial to the butterfly – it is only concerned with colour and sweet fragrance.
Apart from living off the nectar of flowers, the butterfly will also flourish off tree sap, animal dung, fruit and sweet vegetables in your garden.
For Bahrain’s gardens, sow seed in autumn and spring and for successful germination, sow in a well-raked seedbed – ensuring that the soil is fine and crumbly.
Scatter the seed and rake lightly, then firm down well.
Water well in the early stages of germination and plant development, but ensure the area is weed free.
Protect from birds and cats – the latter seem to enjoy walking the length and breadth of a newly-seeded area.
Do not be in a hurry to tidy up the border when the plants are going over, for the butterfly larvae needs time to develop and all the food it can muster, so wait until the leaves have completely died back before you set about a tidy-up.
Wildflowers can be treated as normal bedding plants.
If you find that caterpillars are eating the leaves of plants you didn’t intend them to eat, remember that new leaves will soon replace the chomped ones and the plant will once again look its best.
So, please do not kill the caterpillars that feed on your leaves otherwise you will sacrifice having in your garden Mother Nature’s finest head-spinners.
Elizabeth Shaheen – GDN – 7 May, ’06