Beauties Of The Garden

With careful planning you can entice beautiful butterflies to take up residence in your garden

- Diane Crawford

Attracting wildlife to your garden is wonderful and we all love to see birds flitting through the shrubbery in our backyards as they busily feed or make their homes there. Sometimes, creating a wildlife-friendly garden attracts other native animals, too, such as possums, frogs, geckos and lizards.

There is, however, another group of native visitors you might like to think about attracting to your garden: butterflies. Australia is blessed with an enormous variety of butterflies, many of which are found nowhere else. Worldwide, there are some 28,000 species of butterflies and new species are still being discovered.

The butterfly is a distinct insect and comes in a kaleidoscope of colours, shapes and sizes. Butterflies perform a hugely important role in nature and are among our top pollinators, helping to pollinate more than one-third of the food we eat. Butterflies are also indicator species sensitive to the health of our environment. Sadly, in recent times their populations have decreased because of pesticide use and habitat loss.

You can do your bit for the local butterfly population by creating a garden full of plants that will attract these “birds” of the insect world to your yard.

BUTTERFLIES IN BRIEF

Butterflies don’t grow; they are the adult stage of an amazing life-cycle. The butterfly’s metamorphosis (transformation) consists of four stages: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis) and adult (butterfly). Butterflies fly during the day and have large, often brightly coloured wings and a conspicuous, fluttering flight action. They’re endearing, too, because they are stingless, non-aggressive and very visible.

Butterflies feed on any nectar-filled flowers but are very specific about choosing host plants on which to lay eggs. This means they lay their eggs only on a particular food plant that their caterpillars will eat.