Yesterday, the kids and I went to Snow Farm – a local school for artisans which features work by artists like Josh Simpson. Every year they hold a seconds sale and we have a lot of fun browsing the pottery, blown glass, and metal work. And this year, it got me to thinking about decorative butterflies.

There seemed to be a lot of art that revolved around butterfly decor. For example, there were a number of hand-crafted tea and coffee mugs on which fluttering butterflies had been scratched. I happen to prefer my coffee cups a bit more subtle than that, so we passed on them, but it was interesting.

There were perhaps half a dozen glass butterflies – some of which were actually quite large. I went through a pretty serious glass phase a few years ago. To me, it has an ethereal quality that can put me into a helpfully spiritual frame of mind. The glass butterflies were a bit large – and the coloring, which was a sort of deep orange and green, did not indicate any species of butterfly with which I’m familiar.

We also found a number of fabric crafts that included butterflies – scarves and blouses mainly.

In all these instances, the focus was on butterflies as symbolic of beauty. And I’m cool with that. I’ve written before about the way that butterflies can connect us to the natural beauty of the world and even act as conduits to a deeper, an almost spiritual appreciation of the world.

Yet I was conscious as I looked at all the samples that I was still interested in live butterflies. They are still more dynamic to me than their artificial counterparts. I’m not knocking butterfly art – not at all. But it’s not substitute for encountering the real thing.

That said, as we were leaving the grounds, we happened to pass a small garden. And in it, someone had placed a handful of abstract glass sculptures. Now, it’s November and so most New England gardens are pretty worn down, and this was no exception, but there was a real elegance and beauty to the presence of the art there.

And that got me thinking: maybe it’s time to start sprucing up my live butterfly garden with butterfly art. What do you think?

It is Fall. The geese pass over in their honking V’s while beneath them the leaves slowly turn from green to vivid yellows, oranges and reds. When I walk the dog in the morning, our breath is visible in front of us.

In the garden, only the ‘mums have any real life left to them. The sunflower crowns are black, picked clean by blue jays, grackles and the occasional crow. The tomatoes have sagged from their stakes, the weeds – left to their own since early August – have crowded the pepper and cucumber plants. One or two squashes are left, bright yellow in the tangle of the late Autumn garden.

And the Monarchs – most precious of all butterflies to me – have begun their magical, their reality-defying sojourn from northern climes to tthose due South. The regal butterflies I see fluttering through hayfield, over the old logging road, along the brook’s edge are never going to see Mexico (or Southern California), but their descendants will. In a few months – lifetimes in the world of butterflies – new generations will retrace the flight, returning to the fields and flowers of New England.

I was lucky as a child. I had teachers – and parents – who introduced me to live butterflies and then nurtured that interest and affection. I’ve tried to do the same for my children. Growing your own butterflies is fun and educational, a boffo combination. Anything that connects us to nature, keeps us aware of the complexity and wonder of the wider world is a good thing.

In recent years, though, I have found myself increasingly sad as Fall comes around. This weekend we’re going to “put the garden away.” While some of our crops – kale, second planting spinach, and some other root crops will continue to hold their own – our so-called “canning garden” is at its end. Time to uproot and turn over.

Time to get ready for winter.

And yes – it’s time to say goodbye to butterflies. While I believe that butterfly kits are important and useful, it’s been a long time since we’ve used one. I like keeping a thriving butterfly garden on the property – or thinking of my property as one big butterfly garden. When the temperatures drop and the nights lengthen, I have to say goodbye for another year.

And you know what? I don’t mind saying that it makes me feel some sadness, some longing. Yesterday, walking through the horse pasture, a Monarch butterfly nearly grazed me as it flew by. And it brought me up shortt. I love how their flight seems so aimless and yet has such purpose and power. I love how they stand out in the air, against the failing green of the New England fields and forests.

And I wondered if that butterfly was the last one I would see this year. Or is there another out there?

I guess I am saying – if I can do it without seeming too morbid – that my butterfly garden, as it winds down, and as the Monarchs (and the geese) head South, I am aware of my own mortality. We are guests here, visitors for a little while. Others will come after us. I don’t dwell on it, but I do recognize it. I want to honor it.

The butterflies help me – the ones that visited my lilac early in Spring and the Monarchs who swing by the purple and gold ‘mums. Here today, gone tomorrow. But for a little while, there is beauty. There is this respect for nature. It can hold us up if we let it.

In the category of “life happens” I have to chalk up my first growing season in a long time in which I did not consciously create a butterfly garden. I won’t go into the details – on the one hand, I feel bad because it’s historically been a source of real pleasure and learning for me. But on the other hand, we did get our vegetable garden in, and we are reaping a tremendous bounty from that, and so the fact that I didn’t plant too many flowers (and the lilac bushes had a short season owing to rain) is just going to have to be okay.

That said, we are moving in the direction of Monarch butterfly season! This has long been my favorite butterfly activity and, as I’ve alluded to before, the one that got me hooked on all this stuff so many years ago. While there are plenty of live butterfly kits out there in the world, nothing quite beats trekking out into the world and growing your own, as they say.

If you’re new to Monarchs, the first thing you want to do is find some common milkweed plants. My favorite locations are fields – there happen to be quite a few in our vicinity. Particularly if the fields are not hayed (or at least not hayed twice), you can get some real rich stands of milkweed. That’s important, actually. It’s not hard to find or two plants here and there, but in my experience those tend not to yield as many eggs or caterpillars. When the milkweeds are grouped together – when you can’t turn in the field without bumping into one – that’s ideal.

Soon – in a few weeks where I live – the caterpillars will be hatching from the eggs and starting their nonstop chomping of leaf and stem. When the caterpillars are out, that’s the best time to collect. I’ll cover this in more detail in a future post, but we usually take four or five plants and maybe ten caterpillars. Carry them home and set them up in a nutrient rich terrarium.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed the summer. There were certainly plenty of butterflies fluttering through the yard – and a veggie garden doesn’t actually repel a butterfly – but I did miss the concentrated effort of a real live butterfly garden. I’m shifting my focus to the Monarchs!

It’s just about that time of year. In my neck of the woods – north central New England – the snow is finally gone, the daffodils are showing their pale yellow blooms, and the robins are courting in the grass that’s slowly regaining its green. And that means only one thing – it’s time to think about butterfly gardens.

Oh, I supposed that we should have been thinking about our live butterfly gardens for the whole winter. And in some ways I have. My thoughts always come to this website, wondering what information I can provide for visitors that might persuade them to take the plunge and create their own garden for butterflies. I wonder if I’ll have good luck again with raising Monarch butterflies or if (as was the case last year) the eggs were hard to find and full-formed cocoons even harder.

But when Spring finally comes ’round the bend, and I know it’s almost time to put the spade to the earth, that’s when I start to think about my garden in earnest. This year I am hoping to successfully plant some Hollyhock. It’s a good butterfly plant, and one of my favorites anyway. There is something about tall flowers that really appeals to me. We’ve been planting sunflowers ever since we became homeowners, but I’ve never gotten lucky with Hollyhocks.

It’s funny because as much as I love butterflies, I’m not such a hot gardener. For example, it took me a couple of years of failed efforts before I could get a single morning glory to show up. And that was just one blossom that straggled up an old saw horse that I use to keep a wild rose bush erect. Yet it seemed like a real prize-winning moment to me! I’m hoping to repeat that this year with my hollyhocks. I might enlist one of my neighbors who every year manages to have a few peeping over his fence.

I’m also going to get a few kits from Insect Lore. Generally I take a sort of hardcore approach to cultivating butterflies. I like to get whatever visits and not do any supplementing until it’s time to work with my beloved Monarchs. But this year – in part because I know the kids would enjoy it – I’m inclined to but a few butterfly kits and set free some Painted Ladies in the garden. They’ll make their way elsewhere, I’m sure, but it will be fun to play with them in the house for a while.

Finally, every year I tell myself that I’m going to keep a real butterfly journal this year, instead of just promising to. I’m actually going to try and keep that promise this year! I want to track what I plant, what species of butterfly visit, and when they come. I feel like if I can do that for a few years running – instead of just hovering around the garden admiring the butterflies – then I can start to target certain plants. Anyway, I’ve always admired my birder friends who keep track of all the birds that they see from year to year. I want a lifetime list for butterflies!

What are you doing for your butterfly garden? For your butterfly project? Whatever it is, I wish you fun and joy – the only two reasons I know for doing this!

There is both an art and a science to butterfly gardening. Some people are strong in one area – the science, say – but a bit lacking in the other. That’s okay! Live butterfly gardens are very forgiving. No matter what your strengths, by following a few basic steps and keeping a few simple rules in mind, you can rest assured that you – and your local butterfly population – will enjoy the fruits of your efforts.

SIZE ISN’T EVERYTHING

Butterfly gardens do not have to be big. There are some advantages to large gardens – and I’ll get to them – but it’s hardly a requirement. It’s not a make-or-break condition. I’ve seen gardens conducive to butterflies that are nothing more than plants in pots on the corner of a patio.

If that’s what you’re dealing with – a porch or a patio and some plastic pots or terra cotta urns – consider buying yourself one or two dwarf butterfly bushes. As noted below, butterfly bushes are fantastic for attracting many different species of butterfly. They’re easy to care for and easy on the eyes, too. If you’ve only got room for one butterfly-friendly plant, make it a butterfly bush.

If you’ve got an existing garden, how about cordoning off five square feet? That will give you plenty of space to expand on the variety of plants. And you might even be able to get some of your own milkweed into the mix to attract some Monarch butterflies.

Finally, if you happen to have a lot of space – a horse pasture that’s mostly unused or a big backyard that doesn’t see a lot of action from kids, say – you could simply scatter handful after handful of wild flower seeds. Let them spring up – don’t do a whole lot of mowing or landscaping – and see what starts to visit.

There are a lot of large scale butterfly farms that do just that – maintain large plots of wildflowers and shrubs. On bright summer days, when your whole yard or field appears to be dancing with live butterflies, it can be quite a sight!

VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE

As I noted earlier, if you only have a little space, then get yourself one or more butterfly bushes. This is a perfectly valid butterfly garden!

But if you can upgrade a tiny bit, then you get expand on that. Keep a butterfly bush around, but add to it. Plenty of gardeners ask themselves what type of flowers do butterflies like? And the answer is that butterflies are attracted to plenty of different flowers and shrubs.

For example: after you’ve got your butterfly bush situated, you might want to add a rose bush. And don’t feel limited to red roses – how about yellow roses? Or white ones? Morning Glories are delicate – and I’ve often found them tricky to raise – but the violet and blue varieties (and probably the pink ones as well) can be great in a garden. Plant them near the stem of a sunflower and let them wind their way up to that golden crown.

Other good plants include: Lilac bushes and Forsythia. Both have relatively short time spans when it comes to blooming, but butterflies love them. Asters are nice and tend to hold their color later in the season if you’re looking to attract some of the end-of-summer species. I’ve recently had a lot of success with Snapdragons – and they’re great fun to play around with.

Really, anything with a little color is fair game for a hungry butterfly. The key is to keep your colors in bunches. Butterflies are drawn to fields of color – they’re aren’t getting around based on smell. So bunch your purples with your purples and your whites with your white. You want to avoid the kaleidoscope look. That will only confused your butterfly visitors.

PATIENCE YOUNG JEDI

Part of the joy of butterfly gardening lies in the process itself.. You know – buying seeds, visiting nurseries, turning the soil, getting everything planted. I like to situate a comfortable lawn chair beside the garden – not too close, not too far – so that I can kick back with some homemade ice tea and enjoy the show.

I don’t always have oceans of butterflies visiting. Some days it’s just one or two. Other days it’s like every butterfly in one hundred square miles decided to pay me a visit. Some people take pictures or keep a butterfly journal. I’ve done both, but I’ve slowly evolved to simply appreciating the garden itself. I like the effort that goes into it. I like the simple way it gives back to me. It’s just beautiful, this living vibrant colorful thing.

Don’t go into creating a live butterfly garden with a mentality of more more more! Do it with the idea that you are part of a cycle that was around before you and will continue long after you’re gone. Butterfly gardens can inspire genuine peace and wisdom. The more time I spend with them, the more I realize what a gift they are in our lives.

Living in the Northeastern United States, I’ve long been partial to Monarch butterflies. When pressed to name my favorite, that’s what I always say. And even though I spend a lot of time creating and expanding and perfecting my live butterfly gardens, I’ve never been what you might call a connoisseur of butterflies.

That said, I do enjoy learning about different butterfly species. One of my long term goals is to take some butterfly vacations – traveling the world to see all the various species that you can, especially those that tend not to inhabit my particular climate and eco-region.

One of the butterflies I aim to spend a lot of time looking at are Swallowtail butterflies. They’re easy to spot – large, brilliantly colored. Technically, they hail from a single family – Papilionidae – but there are over five hundred different species. Tropical by nature, you can find them across the globe so long as you aren’t communing with penguins in Antarctica.

One of the telltale features of the adult Swallowtail is – surprise surprise – it’s forked tail which resembles in many ways a swallow’s tail.

The Swallowtail Butterfly actually resembles the Monarch in that the caterpillars often eat toxic plants. Absorbing the toxins is a protective feature – it discourages predators from snacking on them.

Given their size and color, these are popular butterflies amongst both collectors and butterfly farmers. For example, Delaware, Georgia, Oregon, South Carolina and Virginia all have a swallowtail as their state butterfly. Various species have shown up in popular culture including on Pokemon and other movies and shows.

They are in many respects, the quintessential global butterfly, and they are at the top of my butterfly viewing list.

Unless you’re doing your live butterfly gardening in Mexico or Central America, it’s unlikely that you’re going to see an Owl butterfly. Still, this particular butterfly species is one of the more interesting that you’ll find. If you’re into butterfly vacations – that is, traveling the world to partake of as many butterflies as possible – you absolutely want to put owl butterflies on your list.

Technically speaking, an “owl butterfly” is not a single species. Rather it’s a genus – Latin name Caligo – which is characterized by enormous eyespots on their wings which are quite similar to the eyes of an owl. In fact, there are some twenty butterfly species that are included in the Caligo genus.

Caligo butterflies are fairly large (their wingspan can reach up to six inches!) – and the eyes that decorate their wings likely evolved as a means of protection from predators. Because of their size – and because they are not prone to flying long distances at a time – they tend not to get scooped up in the bills of hungry birds.

As for the eyes . . . well, plenty of predators who hunt for prey have large round eyes with equally large pupils. The owl is itself a great example. As a result, many species – butterflies included – have evolved with an aversion to that type of eye. It spells danger and so they steer clear of it.

Thus, potential predators to owl butterflies often overlook them – or seek some other prey – because those large eyes are threatening.

It’s worth nothing, by the way, that some researchers think that predators avoid Caligo species of butterfly because the wing patterns are complex – not because of the “eyes” per se. The brown and gray patterning resembles tree bark and might allow the butterfly to essentially camouflage itself and disappear into its native environment.

Reasonable lepidopterists can disagree with one another!

Most butterflies – certainly those that we cultivate our gardens for – are diurnal, that is, they are most active during daylight hours. Owl butterflies, on the other hand, are crepuscular – more active at twilight (and so often mistaken for moths). If you are traveling the tropics in search of these butterflies, you are far more likely to catch them resting during the day.

Favorite foods? They are partial to fruit juice – and since they don’t do any juicing themselves – they tend to partake of fruit that is rotting, especially bananas.

The butterfly life cycle is a compact procession through four unique stages. They repeat, one after the another, for every species of butterfly out there. The differences lie mostly in the length of time for each stage of the cycle.

The first stage is the egg. Female butterflies lay eggs on leaves or stems – any part of a plant that can later serve as food for the caterpillar or butterfly larvae. The Monarch butterfly, for example, lays its eggs on the Milkweed plant.

Butterfly eggs are tiny. They can be round or oval-shaped, are usually whitish in color and often have a fine set of ribs on them which are visible only through a microscope.

A caterpillar hatches from the egg. Caterpillars are crawling creatures – they have lots of legs and often resemble a colorful worm. This is an important growth stage for the butterfly. Caterpillars do precious little with their lives beside eat. They consume tremendous amounts of vegetation relative to their size, and shed their skin to accommodate their expanding body.

After a period of (usually) weeks have passed, the caterpillar sheds its skin a final time and encloses its body in a hard shell known as a chrysalis, or pupa. Inside the pupa, the caterpillar’s body tissues literally dissolve and the adult butterfly forms. It is an astounding process in such a tiny space.

Some butterfly species actually winter over in the chrysalis. Others – the Monarch comes to mind, as does the Painted Lady butterfly – emerge much sooner. An adult butterfly is known as an imago. It is the most brightly colored and active of the four stages. Most likely, it is imagos that you see in your butterfly garden, hovering about the butterfly bush or the roses or the snapdragons.

Adult butterflies represent the penultimate life stage. They court one another, mate, lay eggs and colonize new butterfly habitats. And when their life comes to a close, they have always left behind a bevy of butterfly eggs to start the cycle anew.

The milkweed plant – call it the Common Milkweed, call it Asclepias Syriaca – is one of the more popular butterfly plants that you’ll find. The reason? It is an essential host plant for Monarch butterflies. Without it, they cannot lay their eggs, the caterpillar larvae cannot eat, and the adult Monarchs cannot emerge from the chrysalis.

But Milkweed plants are not just important for people planning live butterfly gardens. In fact, these plants have been a staple of human culture – providing food, fiber and medicine – for a long time. Like the Monarch butterfly, human beings would not be the same without it.

For example, the Common Milkweed is comprised of a tough fiber material that when harvested can be used to make cords and ropes that can be used for a host of activities such as farming and portage. They have even been used to weave a type of cloth that – while not exactly smooth against the skin – can be quite effective against the elements.

The fibers are contained inside the stalks and can be harvested in late Fall or early winter when the stalks age and are no longer alive. The interior fibers can be mixed with other material such as hemp to increase both their toughness and their degree of comfort. The cords and cloth were traditionally made by hand – twisting and re-twisting the fibers to create a dense and interwoven material that was flexible and sturdy both.

Some native American tribes ate portions of the milkweed plant – roots, flower buds, stems and shoots. They were boiled and eaten whole, washed down with the broth. Some people who practice primal living or seek to integrate indigenous dietary practices into more modern settings have tried to reproduce this delicacy. The result? It’s on the bland side, but considered relatively nutritious.

There are reports of milkweed being used by native Americans to produce postpartum milk production in lactating women, to combat hemorrhage following the birth of children, and even as a laxative. When I was a child in the 1970′s in New England, milkweed milk was considered a remedy for many skin conditions including warts, burns and scrapes.

If the plant is healthy – or potentially healthy for human beings – it’s absolutely life-saving for the Monarch butterfly. The cardiac glycosides are poisonous to predators, and by absorbing it into their system – the larvae thrive on the milkweed leaves – they render themselves potentially fatal to birds and other creatures that might otherwise eat them. Their bright colors are considered the equivalent of a flashing yellow sign, warning hungry predators that they might want to take their hunger elsewhere.

That technique has been so successful that the Viceroy butterfly has adopted – through evolution – the approximate color and design characteristic of the Monarch in an effort to persuade its predators that it shares the same harmful chemical makeup.

Monarchs and milkweed own a fascinating relationships. The Monarch migration is a thing of wonder – they are capable of traveling thousands of miles and retain the memory of where to fly literally through generations – but the only plant they the female Monarch will lay her eggs on is the Common Milkweed. It’s on this plant that the larvae transition into chrysalis and then emerge as adult butterflies. The entire Monarch Butterfly life cycle takes place on a milkweed.

If you are interested in attracting Monarchs, you have to do it with Ascleplias Syriaca. In fact, it’s a good thing to do because this particular butterfly habitat is on the decline – especially in the Northeast – and restocking it can increase the population of Monarch Butterflies. It’s not a hard plant to cultivate or keep alive – basically, you’ll find it across the Americas, literally from southern Canada down to Texas.

It is a hardy plant that grows in various types of soil – sandy, rocky and even clay. It is often found near water sources, but it can thrive away from them as well. You can purchase common milkweed online if you like, and you can also look for it at local nurseries.

You can also find some wild milkweed and introduce it to your garden – do it with the seeds (you want to collect the seeds when the pods are ripe but have not yet split open and plant them in the fall). You can also use rhizome cuttings that you get from the field. Cut the tuber-like rhizome in late Summer or early Fall and be sure that it has a minimum of one bud – and preferably more. The plants need to be in the ground by late September. This will give it more time to gain a foothold. If they aren’t thriving by the time Winter comes, the plants might not survive to the Spring.

Milkweed has the potential to be invasive, because its shoots travel underground and can crop up just about anywhere. One solution is to separate your milkweed garden from your regularly butterfly garden. While we don’t keep a milkweed stand ourselves – there’s so much of it within walking distance – but if I did, I’d probably plant it on the other side of the house.

Don’t be afraid to harvest your milkweed – in fact, cutting and burning it can actually increase subsequent growth. And hey – if you’re interested, you can always boil the roots and see how it tastes!

There are two types of butterfly plants – host plants and nectar plants. A host plant is one that the female butterfly can lay her eggs on. The caterpillars that hatch – butterfly larvae – eat those plants before disappearing into chrysalis and evolving into adult butterflies. Nectar plants are what those adult butterflies use to feed and sustain themselves.

You need both types of plants if you want to have a successful and dynamic live butterfly garden.

For example. Let’s say you’re partial to the Monarch butterfly – you love its bright colors, the fascinating story of its annual migration – and you want to raise some in your yard or garden.

First off, you are going to need some common milkweed. Without it, you are not going to see any live Monarchs. It’s their host plant, in other words. Plant a small plot of it – four square feet, say, all full of milkweed. The female Monarch will lay hundreds of small white oval-shaped eggs on the underside of the large leaves.

White, yellow and black-banded caterpillars will emerge and start gnawing on the leaves like there’s no tomorrow. In fact, there aren’t that many tomorrows for them? They grow quickly and within a matter of days, their outer skin will harden and form a jade-colored chrysalis that hangs from – you guessed it – the milkweed plant.

But when the adult butterflies emerge, they aren’t going to be gorging on milkweed. Their diet is way more sugary and way more liquid. Their long thin proboscis is designed to plumb blossoms on flowers, extracting the nectar inside of them.

So what plants do you need?

I’m a big fan of having at least one – and perhaps two or more – butterfly bushes in your garden. They’re easy to plant, easier to maintain, and they’re like a slice of heaven for almost every species of butterfly. Get them in yellow or red or blue. Get them in purple. Get some miniature bushes to create a hedge for your garden.

Butterfly bushes are hands down the best choice for your first effort at a good butterfly garden.

Beyond that? You want to think in terms of color. If you’ve got a green thumb, rose bushes are nice. Hollyhock are a pretty diverse flower that come in a lot of shapes and sizes and colors.

The point is, if you’re going to have a dynamic population of Monarch butterflies living in your neck of the woods, you’re going to have to have a good blend of both host plants and nectar plants. Skimp on one and you’re going to cut down on the chance to see lots of live butterflies dancing around your garden.

Butterfly plants is a pretty big topic – there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of plants that are attractive to live butterflies. You want to start simple and focus on the basics. If you do that, you can start to expand and build on your experience.

As is the case with so many other things, creating a strong butterfly garden is not a dash – it’s a marathon. Be prepared to get hooked and spend year after year working with butterflies!