Create a Butterfly Santuary

Return to FFGC Butterfly Chairman
Evelyn Somerville
4401 N W 2nd Terrace
Boca Raton 33431-4122

IF YOU PLANT IT THEY WILL COME

By Marcy DiMare

Few outdoor activities are more rewarding and easily available than attracting butterflies to a well-designed butterfly garden. Butterflies long have been a bridge to the natural world, taking one away from the stress of everyday life. Who isn’t captivated by their brilliant colors and languid flight? Haven’t you welcomed a pause from your busy day to watch as one of these “flying flowers” floats leisurely by? Butterflies seem magical - by inviting them into our gardens we can make ourselves part of their world.

Butterflies pollinate a garden. They are also an “indicator species”; similar to the canary in the coal mines years ago. Before the workers would enter a coal mine where the air was deemed questionably unsafe, a canary would be released deep inside the mine. If the canary flew out unscathed, the mine was declared clear and safe. Butterflies make us aware of the dangers of insecticides. Protecting our “flying flowers” has an umbrella effect. Butterflies are insects at the bottom of the food chain supplying food for other species. People who protect them are protecting other species as well. They have unique eyes that are multi-faceted and see ultra-violet. The flowers set up ultra-violet hues, like runway lights at an airport, enabling some butterflies to locate a plant from 5 to 17 miles away. They smell and taste with their feet (tarsi). Millions of shingle like, overlapping scales give butterfly wings their colors and patterns. Metallic, iridescent hues come from faceted scales that reflect light; solid colors are from pigmented scales.

To attract the greatest number of butterflies and have them as residents in your yard you will need to have plants that serve the needs of all life stages of the butterfly. They need a place to lay eggs, food plants for the larva (caterpillar), a place to form a chrysalis (pupa) and nectar sources for the adult. The total butterfly garden takes into account the food preferences of both adult butterflies and their caterpillars. Many butterfly species will drink nectar from a variety of flowering plants, but their caterpillars often are greatly limited in the number of plants on which they can feed. Begin by planting nectar plants such as Milkweed, Porterweed, Firebush, Pentas, Lantana, Salvia, Shrimp, Coral honeysuckle, Mexican flame vine, Zinnias and Jatropha. Butterflies are quite selective and these plants will certainly bring them to your yard to visit for lunch. However, if you want them to take up residence you will also need to plant larva (host) plants such as Milkweed, Passion vines (except for the red flower variety) Cassia trees, Dutchman’s Pipevine, Fennel, Dill, Parsley, Wild Lime, Blue Plumbago and Coontie. Butterflies are host specific. Put heavily eaten plants such as Milkweed, Passion vines and the Pipevine in the back of the garden. You may be shocked to find that a plant has been reduced to sticks overnight. It will revive and will soon leaf out and bloom again. You can transfer your yard from a refueling station into a small butterfly factory.

Evaluate your garden for sun and shade. The same plant will attract different butterflies if put in the sun or shade. Common South Florida Butterflies are Zebra Longwing (State Butterfly), Monarch & Queen Monarch, Sulphur, Giant Swallowtail, Eastern Black Swallowtail, Cassius Blue, Florida Atala and Viceroy. You do not need a large area. You can create a butterfly garden in a container placed on the far end of the patio. Place Milkweed in the back of the container then you may a small Firebush, Dwarf Penta, a trailing Lantana and a good potting mix fertilize, water and enjoy.

In your garden, butterflies require large plants for shelter-to hide in inclement weather, a safe area away from human activity to raise their young, flat stones for perches and also water. Just like as with their human counterparts, the male butterflies like to (puddle) splash in mud puddles. You can supply this with something as simple as a sponge in a saucer of water or dig out a small place in a damp area of the garden. If you find invasive insects such as aphids on your plants, either trim off the infected area or spot treat with an insecticidal soap, baby shampoo or ivory liquid mixed in water and rinse DO NOT SPRAY INSECTICIDES IN YOUR BUTTERFLY GARDEN. You will kill your beautiful “flying flowers”. Make your garden a “Butterfly Magnet”. After all – butterflies are free!

BUTTERFLY SANCTUARY GUIDELINES

l. No harmful chemicals or biological control agents shall be used
in or near the area that is to be declared a Butterfly Sanctuary.

2. Specific larval and nectarous food sources shall be available
continuously and in sufficient quantities.

3. A variety of habitats shall exist to fill all the needs of as many
butterflies as possible: sunny, dappled and shaded areas;
damp spot for salts and water.

LARVAL PLANTS and the BUTTERFLIES THEY PROPAGATE

Asters: Am. Painted Lady, Dainty Sulphur, Pearly Crescentspot, White Peacock
Black Cherry: Red-Spotted Purple, Striped Hairstreak, Viceroy, Tiger Swallow
Cassia, Coffee Weed: Cloudless Giant Sulphur, Little Sulphur, Little Yellow, Orange-Barred Sulphur, Orange Sulphur, Sleepy Orange
Citrus, Hoptree, Rue: Giant Swallowtail, Tiger Swallowtail
Cleome, Nasturtium: Checkered White, Florida White, Great Southern White
Coontie: Atala
Milkweeds(Asclepias): Monarch, Queen
Parsley(Italian self-sows),Dill, Fennel: Eastern Black Swallowtail
Passionflower Vine: Gulf & Variegated Fritillary, Julia, Zebra Longwing
Pawpaw: Zebra Swallowtail
Pellitory (Purietaria floridana), False Nettle(Bochmeria), Hop Vine(Humulus): Comma, Red Admiral
Pipevine (Aristolocia serpentaria & elegans): *see note Pipevine & Polydamus Swallowtail.
Plumbago: Cassius Blue
Red Bay, Sweet Bay Magnolia: Palamedes Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail

Ruellia, Snapdragon, Verbena: Baltimore, Buckey, American Painted Lady, Cuban & Texan Crescentspot, Malachite, White Peacock
Sassafrass, Spicebush: Spicebush Sw., Palamedes Swallowtail, Tiger Swallowtail
Strangler Fig: Ruddy Daggerwing
Sugar Hackberry: Hackberry, Mourning Cloak, Question Mark, Snout, Tawyny Explorer
Torchwood, Wild Lime: Schaus' Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail
Violets(Native): Great Spangled, Meadow and Variegated Fritillary
Willows(Native): Viceroy, Comma, Mourning Cloak, Red-Spotted Purple
Other:__________________________________________________________________
Nectarous Plants for adult Butterflies:
Abelia, Azalea(native), Black-Eyed Susan, Blue Salvia, Buddleia, Button Bush,
Catmint, Chives, Coral Vine, Firebush Firespike, Golden Dewdrop, Joe-Pye Weed,
Lantana, Liatris, Marigold, Montbretia, Native Red Salvia, Pentas, Phlox,
Pineapple Sage, Pittosporum, Porterweed, Purple Cone Flower, Stokesia, Sweet
Pepper Bush, Tithonia, Winter Honeysuckle, Zinnias.

This completed application located on our forms pageand three to four pictures along with your plant list testify that a
Butterfly Sanctuary, containing as many larval plants as practical for the
area, has been established in accordance with these guidelines.

* note:
A. serpentaria is the only native foodplant in Florida. In the Carolinas, etc., it feeds on the large leaves of A. durior which will not grow here. It is true they will lay eggs on many species of aristolochias and most are toxic to this species.

Another strange characteristic of this butterfly larvae is the fact that in the wild they have to crawl and find about 50 plants in order to grow large enough to pupate since A. serpentaria is such a tiny plant. When we raise them on an acceptable host plant they will crawl off and roam after a couple of days since they seem to be programmed to search. Strange thing.

We keep about 25 species of aristolochias here for research. I wouldn't mention tagala in the article since that is the host for birdwings in Malaysia and really not useful for anything else! Polydamas even scorn it.

Ronald Boender, Founder
Butterfly World, Ltd., 3600 W Sample Road, Coconut Creek, FL 33073
Phone 954-977-4434 Fax 954-977-4501
www.butterflyworld.com

and from another expert: Mark Minno author of "Florida Butterfly Gardening" we heard:

"Regarding the pipevines, there are dozens of different species that could be cultivated in Florida. Aristolochia elegans or Calico Flower is one of the most widely grown species. It's a beautiful plant and is readily eaten by the caterpillars of the Gold Rim or Tailless Swallowtail. The Pipevine Swallowtail will also eat it occasionally, but the caterpillars of this butterfly much prefer our native pipevines. Unfortunately Calico Flower is on the list of invasive plants in Florida (a category 2 plant, meaning one to watch for, according to the EPPC or Exotic Pest Plant Council). However, this listing is based on a few observations. I have never seen Calico Flower seeding into and over taking natural areas. Perhaps these observations were around old home sites. It can be an aggressive vine in the garden, once it's established, but usually the swallowtail caterpillars eat it to the bones and keep it in check, sometimes to the point of killing the plant. I would vote to keep Aristolochia elegans on your garden certificate"....Marc Minno

Butterfly Sanctuarys