On the webCheck out UT Bulletin PB1636, titled "Butterfly Gardening," at www.utextension.utk.edu/publications.For more on monarch butterfly migration, go to www.monarchwatch.org.Contact Tom Stebbins at tstebbins@utk.edu or 855-6113.
Tom Stebbins
This Week in the Garden
We are seeing various butterflies now in midsummer when numerous flowers bloom. It is wonderful how fluttering butterflies can bring magic to a garden. They fly effortlessly in random motion from flower to flower.
Butterflies are looking for nectar to feed themselves, and they are searching for a place to lay eggs. Butterflies are nearsighted, so large masses of flowers will attract them. They gravitate toward the colors pink, red, orange, purple, white and yellow. They are attracted to flower shape, color and fragrance. A mixture of flower, shrubs and trees is the best territory for butterflies.
Fussy eaters
Most butterflies will lay eggs only on plants that are a suitable food source for their young.
The flying butterfly needs to find the correct nectar source from flowers. This sugar-rich material is required for energy used in flight. Butterflies can taste with their feet. They are searching for the specific plant or plants they need to complete their lifecycle.
Butterflies must land in order to feed or drink. Flowers offer ideal landing pads for a variety of butterflies and moths. Butterflies prefer to rest on a flower that points upward. Daisies are a good example. Butterflies shy away from downward-pointing flowers. Many prefer tube-shaped flowers such as daylily, morning glory or salvia. The monarch butterfly gets nectar from lantana, lilac, goldenrod, zinnia and several other flowers. However, the caterpillar stage eats only milkweeds.
Many herb plants have small flowers, yet are excellent nectar plants. For example, the black swallowtail butterfly feeds on phlox, clover and thistle flowers. The larvae can completely consume the leaves of dill, parsley, carrot and fennel. The painted lady butterfly visits cosmos and buttonbush flowers. The larvae eats hollyhock and thistle leaves. The tiger swallowtail caterpillars prefer wild cherry, willow and tulip poplar leaves.
Play in the mud
A mud puddle actually provides the best form of water for butterflies. Males of several species gather together at small rain pools, forming "puddle clubs." Here they get moisture but also the needed vitamins and minerals. Butterflies require these extra nutrients to mate successfully. They prefer this over a birdbath or pond. A puddle can be placed in the garden by using a container filled with sand or gravel. Place a few rocks and twigs on the sand to provide landing sites within reach of the water. This should be in a sunny area near the flower garden.
Butterflies also like to land on rotted fruit such as apples or bananas placed nearby.
The plants butterflies eat often have toxic chemicals in them. The butterflies are not affected, but these chemicals make them undesirable to birds and other predators. For example, birds will regurgitate monarch butterflies and learn to stay away. This is an example of how insects and plants have developed mutual survival mechanisms.
Monarch marvels
Every fall our monarch butterflies in the eastern United States migrate 1,000 to 3,000 miles to Mexico. This amazing feat takes about two months. They travel around 50 miles per day. They huddle in masses in the same small area each year and often on the same tree. They stay in Mexico until March, and then they mate and take off north again. As they fly north, they go through several egg/caterpillar/adult cycles. Finally their great-great-grandchildren migrate back south again in the fall. So far, how this all happens is a mystery.
Lately we are seeing eastern swallowtails and gulf fritillary butterflies at the Master Gardener Butterfly/Hummingbird/ Rain Garden down by the river between the Tennessee Aquarium buildings. Soon reports of the migrating monarchs should be arriving. Their peak season is from late September to early October for the Chattanooga area. Many other butterflies are expected as more flowers come into bloom. Please report what you see in your gardens this summer.