Butterfly Gardening For Kids

This is all about introducing youngsters to the wonderful hobby of gardening and what better way to do this than by creating a habitat that will attract butterflies? Everyone loves watching butterflies and none more so than children so fill the garden with flowers to attract these delightful insects. This article which I found on the National Garden Bureau website contains lists of flowers and suggestions on planning a child’s garden.

Winged jewels of the air ? flutterbys ? no matter what you call butterflies, they entrance everyone. Planting a garden to attract them is one of the best ways to get children interested in gardening and nature while introducing them to a bit of science at the same time.

To attract butterflies, design a garden that provides a long season of flowers that provide nectar. Perennials, such as chives, dianthus, bee balm, butterfly weed, black-eyed Susan, and echinacea, offer a succession of blooms. Add annuals such as cosmos, petunias, and zinnias, that flower all season. Flowers with many small tubular flowers or florets?liatris, goldenrod, and verbena, for example?or those with single flowers, such as French marigold, Shasta daisy, and sunflower.
Butterfly on Zinnia
In addition to planting for adult butterflies, you also need to offer food plants for their caterpillar larvae. Sources can be certain trees and shrubs but also include herbs such as dill, fennel, and parsley, and ?weedy? plants like common milkweed and thistles. One of the best-known butterflies, the monarch, lays its eggs only on milkweed then its larvae feed on the plant.

See more at National Garden Bureau