Rhapsody616 said:I was told that is you make a butterfly garden they will lite there and leave the other stuff alone... is that true?
When people build butterfly gardens, generally they plant flowers known to be butterfly magnets, and give no thought to the host plants the flutterbys need for raising families.
The caterpillars have a different diet than the adults...
So... expect the butterflies to search out host plants...
Usually host plants are the normal weeds that grow in back... but with everybody landscaping their property to within an inch of existence, the normal host plants aren't there... means there aren't as many butterflies as formerly.
I'm not sure what you mean by "leave the other plants alone", but... I always feel thrilled to find the caterpillars!
I've been noticing hawk moths at dusk (the last few weeks).... They're as cool as anything... visiting the 4 0clocks, rose of sharon, as well as the brugmansias and daturas...
Unfortunately... one of the coolest of the hawk moths... is the
manduca sexta ... often vilified as the worm on the tomato plant.
One of my hawk moths found my potted variegated pepper plant... well separated from the rest of the garden... had caterpillars munching happily away... completely defoliated my pepper plant.
I moved the caterpillars over to a datura wrightii... A black nightshade would have sufficed as well.... I have plenty of both growing for the caterpillars...
Each butterfly has specific plants they use... for example, there's another beautiful hawk moth that I often see at the same time as the manduca sexta... the
tersa sphinx (Xylophanes tersa), who uses the button weeds at my house to raise it's young... at your house, and all the button weeds poisoned out of existence, the poor moth will use pentas as a host plant...
The point is... the more landscaped the area... the more dire is the need to provide for the caterpillars.
There are several sites that discuss plants to grow for the cats, and your best plan is probably to discover which butterflies are likely to visit your garden, and to provide for them... no use putting out a buffet for visitors that never come...
