Create a Butterfly Garden from Scratch

In today's video, I wanted to give my tips for getting started with butterfly gardening. These are the fundamentals that you need to know. Native plants are going to be key to your butterfly garden habitat, but that's not all you need to succeed. Let me know in the comments if you have a butterfly garden or if you plan to add one in the future.
Keystone Species Info from NWF: www.nwf.org/Garden-for-Wildli...
Host Plant Finder Tools from NWF: www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder/
More information about why you should limit the number of monarchs you raise in captivity and why keeping them wild is better: www.xerces.org/blog/keep-mona...
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[@nor.cal.explorin]

Great video. Very motivational to expand my garden to other areas of my yard. Look forward to more of your videos 😀

[@TylerAndToast]

I love your energy, bubbliness, and how happy you sound. Enjoyable voiceover

[@awildapproach]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@naturewithgabe]

This was fantastic! Very thorough, I love it.

[@awildapproach]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for watching and taking time to leave the comment! Happy wildlife gardening. :)

[@tjlastname5192]

I’m working on a butterfly garden, and I found an online retailer called Joyful Butterfly, that has a lot of good info. You can select your state for native plants. Then they have all the info on what time of year the flowers bloom, and what butterflies host on them. If you don’t want to do that they have regional bundles to get your garden started. I’ve ordered about 10 plants from them, and they have all come in very healthy.

[@awildapproach]

I'm glad you found a company you like to order native plants from. Happy butterfly gardening!

[@tjlastname5192]

@@awildapproach thanks. You too.

[@marky3131]

Such good advice on the pathways. It also helps those pesky HOA’s and neighbors who think native plantings are messy.

[@awildapproach]

Yes, and over time, my pathways will get skinnier and skinnier. ;)

[@dmnos6824]

HOAs must be having a real negative effect on rewilding. I am glad that I don't have one, although I do live in an area where appearances are important and I hide my wildlife garden in the back garden.

[@galecunningham1250]

You are so great to present this video. I recently moved to WA from SoCal. I had a butterfly garden there which attracted Gulf Fritillaries
and Monarchs. I used to give talks to local garden clubs on what elements are needed to attract butterflies to the garden. Native plants, water, garden nectar plants, e.g., buddleia, purple coneflowers, passiflora for Gulf Fritillaries, daisy, and many more. Also, patches of mud for males and rotting fruit. Presently I am gardening in pots and have 3 buddleias which have attracted large swallowtails and coneflowers. So glad to see what you are doing and also a shoutout for the recently revived, California Pipevine Swallowtail just outside of San Francisco.🦋🦋🦋

[@awildapproach]

Thank you so much, Gale! So, as for the plants themselves, I can't speak for your side of the country, but over here on the East side of the United States, in a lot of areas butterfly bush (aka buddleia) is an invasive plant. I used to have one, and since removed it. There are supposed sterile cultivars, but sometimes sterile plants become non-sterile years later. So, over here we shouldn't plant that specific one, but I don't know the status where you live. I so appreciate your comment and I also try adding mud puddles here, but for whatever reason, they love my driveway water runoff instead. Who knew? :) And yes, it's exciting about that pipevine swallowtail! I LOVE our pipevine swallowtails over here in Tennessee. One of my favorites! Happy gardening, Gale!

[@HeatherLynn_RN]

Great advise on bird feeders. Had been thinking about removing mine since I’ve been planting native plants recently- now I’m definitely going to do that. Curious what your thoughts are on hummingbird feeders if they’re cleaned very often. We just moved here a year ago and we are planting a very good amount of native plants but they’re all small in size at this point so I’ve left my hummingbird feeder up until natives are a little more established. Tyia.

[@awildapproach]

I think hummingbird feeders can be great, especially in the stage of garden you have. I personally didn't have any luck with my hummingbird feeders. Mine just attracted ants. I gave up on them, but if one is diligent with keeping them clean, they should be great until your native plants grow up. :)

[@dmnos6824]

This is a very good video, every encouraging. I find it encouraging as I am struggling creating my wildlife garden. Thanks for the video.

[@awildapproach]

keep on going! You can do this. Takes time to attract them, but worth the effort. Take it slow if you need to. Maintenance can be overwhelming in young gardens. Thanks so much for watching and commenting.

[@dmnos6824]

@@awildapproachYour welcome, you really did have a lot of good points to make.

[@Hayley-sl9lm]

Maybe the water in your puddle was too clean? Or sometimes I wonder if they're sensitive to the residual chlorine in municipal water. Thank you for sharing your experience. I don't have a bird bath yet so last summer I actually bought a poultry drinker from a farm supply store to put water out for birds during our heat waves. It was mostly crows that used it (I live in the city) and they would dunk their food in it to make it more digestable, so it would always get very dirty and I had to clean it frequently. I'm definitely going to try something else next year, I would find random pieces of bread and one time I found like a whole half of a baguette in there.

[@awildapproach]

Great points and observations! I’ve tried both cleaner water and even muddy things like moist compost. But I hadn’t thought about the city water I do in fact have! Great point. I do have a pond kit I plan to install as soon as I can, but I could be a while as I may have to run electrical underground!😅But in the meantime, maybe I can let rain fill up something and use rain water…🤔Thanks for taking the time to leave your comment. One other note: when I get water on my concrete driveway from my hose, butterflies sometimes come and drink that, but it’s also city water.🤔interesting.

[@RealBradMiller]

​@@awildapproachDo you or yoyr city drop road salt during the winter on or near that driveway? That's likely why they enjoy that area... And maybe the radiated heat from the concrete. 🥂

[@awildapproach]

@@RealBradMiller they do sometimes salt in winter, but it’s rare. But that’s a great question! Oh yes, I bet the heat really helps, too. They love sunning in my garden.🦋❤️

[@caroltrego1640]

Great video. Thanks.

[@awildapproach]

Thank you for the kind comment, and for watching!! I'm glad it was useful.

[@JanieP53]

Loved your video!!

[@awildapproach]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

[@PlantNative]

What s the butterfly eclosing at 9:18 in? Appears to be on a blue chair back. Stunning! Great video!

[@awildapproach]

That is a gulf fritillary butterfly. :) I really enjoyed seeing their entire life cycle, two years in a row. They host on purple passionvine. Here's a video about that plant, so you can see more about it: th-cam.com/video/weEfpV-vnnY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=75MzX1C0d-lG12rw My goal is to have the opportunity to see even more species of butterflies in their entire life cycle in my home garden.

[@myback4t]

Well done😊 I really enjoyed this. Nice footage!

[@awildapproach]

Thanks for watching! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@nor.cal.explorin]

Great video. Very motivational to expand my garden to other areas of my yard. Look forward to more of your videos 😀

[@awildapproach]

Thanks so much for watching! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.