Here’s a thought – you’ve committed yourself to designing and planting a live butterfly garden. You know just what shrubs and flowers you are going to plant. You’ve got the layout set up to maximize the butterfly host plants and butterfly nectar plants. You are prepared to sit back and watch hours of basking on the broad leafed plants and sipping nectar from the others and drinking water from damp sand. There’s a butterfly dance that’s about to start happening and you’re ready to be a part of it!
What could be better?
How about raising your own butterflies?
To a lot of people, that idea sounds downright crazy. What are you supposed to do, add water to some butterfly dust? Capture a male and a female butterfly, put them in a container with some mood lighting and turn up the Kenny G.? Heck, why not go and start a butterfly farm?
Just how are you supposed to go about raising butterflies?
It is a lot easier than you might think. If you are really intrigued by the idea but feel a little nervous and unsure of the process, there are a lot of useful butterfly kits out there. Go on and get yourself one and then simply follow the instructions. Even the best of them are designed to be accessible and understandable to kids, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to work. Don’t be ashamed of taking the simple step first.
But if you are feeling a bit more adventurous, then you might consider picking up some butterfly eggs and raising them yourself right in your garden. In order for this to work, you need to know first what kind of plant the butterfly lays its eggs on and second what type of food the caterpillar is going to eat. It’s not like the caterpillars won’t eat what’s right in front of them – namely the plant that they hatch on – but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t ideal plants and flowers that would really make them happy. Give them what they need and want and you’re far more likely to see them through all the stages of the butterfly life cycle.
The caterpillars hatch from very tiny eggs – usually round, sometimes oval-shaped. Once they emerge, they start to eat and eat. They’ll stay close to where they hatched, but they do need good food sources and plenty of safety. Caterpillars can easily be eaten up by predators, so be sure you’ve got some plants in which they can hide.
After the larval stage – that is, caterpillar – the butterfly will spin itself into a cocoon, which is known as the pupae stage. Inside the pupa – or chrysalis – the caterpillar will slowly evolve into what we all think of when we see butterflies.
After it has fully developed into an adult butterfly, it will emerge from the chrysalis. Then it will spend approximately twenty four hours allowing its wings to dry, and preparing itself for a brief but intense life. And you will have the special joy of knowing that you raised these butterflies yourself!
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