Enjoy a Butterfly Garden This Spring

As spring sprouts around us and summer is just around the corner, we’ll soon be seeing monarchs and lots of other butterflies. They would love to have a nice place to stay, so how about creating a butterfly B&B in your own back yard? Luckily, butterfly gardens don’t require a lot of space, and they are super easy and fun to create. Plus, they’re a great way to get your little ones interested in nature (what kid doesn’t “dig” an activity that involves dirt and bugs?) while providing a happy habitat for some of nature’s gentlest creatures.

What You Need
Basic gardening tools (garden fork)
Peat moss
Butterfly guidebook or info about the butterflies who frequent your area and their preferred flowers
Gardening book
Five annuals and five perennials as recommended by butterfly and/or garden book (look for nectar-producing varieties like impatiens, marigold, zinnia, butterfly weed, purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan, and bee balm)

• Pick a sunny, yet protected spot for your garden. (A site that is sheltered from the wind and that receives at least six hours of sun a day is ideal.)  
• After you consult a gardening book, draw a garden plan with proper flower spacing.
• Dig up the turf, breaking up dirt clods with a garden fork.
• Using peat moss, create loose, fluffy soil for your plants.
• Plant short flowers in the front and tall ones in the back. For best results, plant groups of flowers rather than single plants.
• Saturate the ground with water (which is good for the flowers and for the butterflies, who drink the wet soil for nutrients). 
• Enjoy watching butterflies flutter and feed in their new garden!

When gardening, protect your flesh with cruelty-free sunscreen and insect repellents.

Visit HelpingAnimals.com for more great ways to help animals and live in harmony with wildlife.