Butterflies are free

[feng_shui_house]

But caterpillars can cause expensive damage.


Skipper butterfly


Dainty sulfur butterflies-I think a male and female. It's hard enough to focus on something so tiny and quick-moving, but when there are two of them... boy, that was lucky.




Monarch butterfly




Tomato hornworm caterpillar egg ...

and caterpillar (put on Bernard in hopes the birds would eat him.)

Comments

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

You need to plant butterfly attracting stuff. I was lucky that the lantana grew by itself. They tend to like strong, musky-scented plants, and some kinds of weeds are essential to their caterpillars. Milkweed for monarchs (I have no milkweed, and rarely see them), passion vine (a very ugly weed) grows in my hedges and I try to let it mostly alone- gulf fritillary and a few other butterflies lay eggs on that (I trim the hedges with hand clippers to avoid hurting eggs or caterpillars). When I haven't mowed the lawn in a while, I get Dainty Sulfurs and small blue butterflies on weed flowers.

I suggest you google your area/butterflies to see what's around, and then google the butterflies to see what plants they like, and then chose the plants that fit your lifestyle. If you grow enough of the plants they like, you WILL get butterflies.

[ultrapsychobrat.livejournal.com]

Well, my yard has plenty of weeds and never gets mowed often enough, but no butterflies. I'll do what you suggest and let you know what happens.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

You might very well *have* butterflies and not know it. The Skipper butterflies are a little more than an inch across, and the dainty sulfurs and the little blue butterflies I've seen are so small they look like drifting bits of paper to the naked eye.

If your weeds have flowers, go out some bright day and watch to see if 'bits of paper' are flitting about them. I believe many butterflies are simply so small we never realize they're there.