Re: Butterflies in the shade

Hi Nancy,

Butterflies like sunshine.  you may have to cut down your trees if you want
lots of butterflies.  When I was a kid, maybe 50 yrs ago, I used to collect
butterflies. Even then, finding a locality where they were abundant was
difficult.  I think it must be nearly impossible now -- between pesticides
(which we had then too) and development, conditions are jjust not very
favorable to butterflies anymore.

To have adult butterflies in your garden, you need to be close to areas
that provide food for their larvae, the caterpillars.  You should
potentially have the sorts of butteflies in New York City as we do in
Indiana.  The Black Swallowtail is one of the most noticeable, but there
are other rarer swallowtails too:  Pipevine, Ajax, and Tiger swallowtails
come to mind.

This time of year, you will only see butterflies that hibernate as adults,
such as the Red Admiral and the Mourning Cloak.  Monarchs won't appear in
the North until they have made their annual migration in late spring and
early summer.

Most non-migratory native butterflies spend the winter in the pupal stage
(chrysalis).  They will begin to emerge as adults once the weather warms
up.  In Indiana, the peak butterfly period used to be the first week in
July.  I'm not sure there is a peak butterfly season anymore.

Milkweed, Butterfly Weed, tall garden phlox, and Butterfly Bush are some
flowering plants you can have in your garden to encourage butterflies to
visit.  In early spring, Tiger Swallowtails are attracted to the blooms of
lilacs.  In fall, the Comma and the Question Mark butterflies are strongly
attracted to rotting fruit (along with hordes of yellow jackets) under
fruit trees.  Rotting pears always seemed to be prime turf for thewe
species when I was a kid.

I could go on and on about butterflies, but this is a garden list, so I'll
let it go at this for now.

Without larval food plants and freedom from insecticides, you can't hope to
see many butterflies, regardless of what sorts of flowers you plant in your
yard.  And don't forget the sunshine!

Jim Shields
in central Indiana


At 02:52 PM 4/6/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Just wondering if you all get a lot of butterflies in the shady parts of
>your gardens. Yesterday I watched two brown swallowtails of some sort flying
>in tandem while a third taunted my three cats. I seem to have attracted more
>of these "flying flowers" each year but (except for the cabbage butterfly) I
>never really get a lot. In my highly shady patch I've pretty much failed
>with all the traditional butterfly-catchers except echinacea. (I gave up on
>Joe Pye weed because it produces such blah flowers in the shade and never
>looks really healthy.) Anyone have some special tips? I still fantasize
>about seeing my garden packed with butterflies.
>Nancy Stedman
>NYC, zone 6B
>
>
*************************************************
Jim Shields             USDA Zone 5     Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92              WWW:    http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA                              Tel. +1-317-896-3925
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