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© WindStar Wildlife Institute
Butterfly
Gardening
Few things are more enchanting than a
garden filled with fluttering butterflies. They
bring out the delighted child in each of us as
they shimmer in the sunlight. Asking very
little, they give us an unsurpassed gift of
symmetry, beauty, and delicacy.
E
njoying their performance,
we don't always realize that,
if we want to have a large
number of adult butterflies, we
have to think about providing
habitat needs for their whole
life cycle.
At the same time, we will be
making a contribution to the
conservation movement, as well
as bringing life and sparkling
beauty to our homes.
To quote Robert Pyle,
“I am very concerned about
what I call the extinction of
experience – the loss of
everyday species within our own
radius of reach. When we lose
the common wildlife in our
immediate surroundings, we run
the risk of becoming inured to
nature’s absence, blind to
delight, and, eventually,
alienated from the land."
By planting a butterfly garden
today, we are insuring our
continued involvement with
nature tomorrow.
There are a variety of theories
about where butterflies got
their name. One of the most
charming proposes that it
began in England when people
saw the woodlands alight with
yellow brimstones and
compared them to “butter
flying."
However they came to be
named, early naturalists
certainly had no idea that
caterpillars and butterflies were
different stages of the same
