About
Welcome to A Live Butterfly Garden!
Kids and live butterflies are a great match!
A long time ago – though sometimes it feels like yesterday – my fourth-grade teacher took me and my classmates out into the pastures that surrounded our little school. There, walking back and forth between sun-blanched Timothy and tall, green milkweed plants, we observed tiger-striped larvae and harvested the cocoons of Monarch butterflies. A few weeks later, I skipped morning recess so I could stay inside and watch a butterfly slowly emerge from its cocoon.
I’ve never forgotten that moment. It hooked me on butterflies for life.
In the years since, I’ve spent a lot of time in a lot of places, but I always paid attention to the butterflies. Didn’t matter if I was in Spain or Quebec or Boston – I had my eye out for those beautiful winged creatures. And since I’ve settled down a bit, with kids of my own, I’ve started to design and build gardens with butterflies in mind.
This website has a lot of resources to help you get started on your own butterfly garden. If you’re new to the whole experience, you might want to start with some or all of these posts:
Designing a Live Butterfly Garden
If you’re specifically interested in Monarchs – still my personal favorite – then you can take a gander at these posts:
Wondering what type of plants and flowers and shrubs will best serve the butterflies in your area? Check out these posts:
And if you’re just looking to learn more about butterflies – the butterfly life cycle, butterfly larvae, species of butterfly, even how to best photograph a butterfly – well, we’ve got some material on those subject as well.
Finally, if you’re an educator of any kind, take a look at our page for parents and educators. I’ve collected several lesson plans through the years that are effective in a number of classroom settings.
Above all, thanks for dropping by. I hope you find something that’s helpful – maybe a tip or suggestions for beginning your own butterfly garden or improving your existing one. Live butterflies – in hand or in the garden – have been a real joy for me. I hope with this website to pass a bit of that along to you.
Happy butterfly gardening!
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