Butterfly Garden

by JoyfulPamela

Butterflies signify beauty, freedom, growth, change, and new life. Their varieties come in many colors and sizes, but they are all amazing!

I love butterflies - all kinds, all colors, all sizes - I just love them! They are so gentle and light, never hurt or scare anyone, have tons of variety, are found all over the world, and are just plain fascinating! Anyone who quietly watches them are given a feeling of peace and soothingness.

Their special life cycle is nothing short of amazement, also. Have you ever watched one of these sweet creatures grow? We ordered a special kit one year for the children to watch little baby caterpillars grow with the special food the company sent us. After about a week they began making their little homes in a chrysalis. We watched them with eager anticipation until one by one they broke out a few days later. We grew very attached to them in a short time and were sad to release them soon after, but their memory stays with us years later.

Sciency stuff that is fun to know! ~ Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Arthropoda, Class: Insecta, Order: Lepidoptera. There are absolutely tons of smaller scientific classifications for butterflies. Depending on their size, shapes, colors, types of habitats, and other features, scientists group them together.

The Simple Yet Complex Butterfly

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts, egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. ...

Playful Butterflies on Our Butterfly Bush

It's fun to watch them from our dining room window or outside!

Butterfly Lunchtime in my Garden

Send a friendly message with butterflies!

Fun Butterfly Sites!

Find out more about these delightful creatures!

The Butterfly Website
Read all sorts of articles about butterflies, look through tons of butterfly photos in the gallery, watch videos of butterflies around the world, learn how to create a butterfly garden, study some geography by finding out where varieties of butterflies live, locate a butterfly garden near you, find clip art and educational materials, and enjoy many other butterfly related information!

Butterfly Videos at eHow
Find all sorts of interesting videos about butterflies including types of butterflies, the butterfly life cycle, habitats, how to make food, and creating a butterfly house. There is so much to learn about these creatures which seem so simple!

More Butterflies from my Garden

The purple butterfly bush attracts many butterflies all summer long!

The Impact of Butterflies on Our Family

A few years after my children hosted our tiny butterflies, they still had a special love for them! My daughter especially grew fond of the fluttering creatures. When she wanted to re-decorate her room, she made butterflies the main theme. After finding butterfly wall paper, we also found butterfly posters, butterfly plagues, butterfly waste cans, butterfly stationary, butterfly jewelry ... you get the point ... butterfly everything! She has kept it that way now even as a teen. Even many of her clothes reflect her feeling about butterflies!

My daughter's love of butterflies also encouraged us to create a small butterfly garden. What started out as one tiny butterfly bush has grown into a couple enormous ones on the side of our house along with several colorful new flowers!

One of the reason's we decided to have a small butterfly house was that my middle child was very unfond of any insect type creature when he was small. We thought if he became familiar with one of the most gently creatures, he wouldn't be as scared. As we brought the caterpillars into our home, he wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea, but he would stand at a distance observing. Once they came out of their chyrsallis and gently flew around in their netted home where he knew he was safe, he became much more comfortable around them. It also helped with his comfort level around other insects.

My youngest child was only two when we kept our butterflies, but he still has a small memory of them. He has been asking me if we could adopt some new ones now that he is older. I think this will be a fun adventure for us again over the summer! Looking forward to it! :)

A Butterfly Landed on Me!!

Awww, isn't that cute?

Butterflies for Children

The Butterfly Site
This cool site has information to help you build your own butterfly garden so it will attract lovely butterflies, find out about all the stages of the butterfly life cycle, discover their migration paths, create a place to raise caterpillars in your home, learn all sorts of fascinating facts, view thousands of pictures of butterflies, play with several of the butterfly activities or try a craft!

The Children's Butterfly Site
Cool stuff for kids to enjoy regarding butterflies! This site contains stories, photos, coloring sheets, lesson plans, and teaching materials for kids of all ages.

All About Butterflies
The Enchanted Learning website has tons of articles, facts, coloring sheets, puzzles, worksheets, quizzes, and more to delight both kids and adults who are fanatics of butterflies! This is a favorite website of my kiddos!

Caterpillars & Kids: Preserving Our Wildlife
This fabulous page by my friend, Donnette, has an abundance of resources to help parents and teachers guide children to be more aware of all creatures and endangered wildlife and let them know what they may do to help! :)

Grow Butterflies at Your Home!

My children loved when we did this!
Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden
Insect Lore

Listen to Nature

The Speaking Butterfly! :) Sorry about my weird sense of humor!

Butterfly Gardening

Butterfly gardening is a growing school of gardening, specifically wildlife ...

Want to start your own butterfly garden?

Find out how with these sites. : )

How to Create a Butterfly & Hummingbird Garden
New Jersey Audubon has some wonderful suggestions to get a butterfly garden started!

How to Start a Butterfly Garden
The North American Butterfly Association has numerous articles on how to help you have a successful butterfly garden.

How to Make Butterfly Gardens
I love all of the beautiful photos of the proper type of flowers to plant and the information about the types of butterflies they will attract.

Butterfly Gardening Videos!

Professional Butterfly Gardens

Since our home butterfly garden only attracts local butterflies that make their habitat in our climate, we started to search for places that had many more plants than our tiny home and places that specialized in creating buildings that could provide the appropriate climate that was needed for other varieties.

We were delighted to find a butterfly garden only about 10 minutes away at a county park, two tropical butterfly gardens about an hour from our home, and several specialized zoos that we have enjoyed visitng while we have been vacationing.

If you have never seen the wide variety of butterflies that exist, you may want to look up one of these gardens yourself! Have fun!!

Butterfly Enjoying Juicy Fruit
Butterfly Enjoying Juicy Fruit

Want to find a butterfly garden near you?

Here are a few, but many more exist for butterfly enthusiasts!

Butterfly Houses, Farms, and Gardens
This link from The Butterfly Site allows you to choose your state or country and find a butterfly home that you can enjoy visiting!

The Victory Butterfly Gardens
Located in British Columbia

Missouri Botanical Garden
Take a virtual tour of this butterfly garden!

The Butterfly Place
Enjoy these gorgeous butterfly photos from Massachusetts!

Blue Morpho from a Tropical Garden

What do you think about butterfly gardens?

A Striped Butterfly!

A zebra in the garden?
Updated: 06/28/2011, JoyfulPamela
 
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What is your favorite type of butterfly?

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happynutritionist on 08/04/2011

I spent time watching a tiger swallowtail in my garden, with camera in hand...and what a challenge to get a picture, he/she was very camera shy:-) I decided to just enjoy the moment.

sheilamarie on 06/25/2011

I have lots of butterflies fluttering about in my garden. I wrote a Squidoo lens about butterflies, too, so I guess you could say I'm a fan!

ohcaroline on 06/24/2011

Wonderful information on butterfly gardens. I visited a beautiful garden at Callaway Gardens in Georgia. Wonderful experience.

kimbesa on 06/24/2011

I had no idea that butterfly gardens were so popular. Makes sense with all the interest in green and eco friendly gardening and landscaping. Thanks! I'll choose future plants with butterflies in mind!

bev-owens on 06/24/2011

I love to visit the butterfly garden at our local zoo...lovely and serene place. I also love the information you have shared with us on your page.

mbgphoto on 06/23/2011

There is nothing quite like a butterfly. I could watch them for hours! Thanks for a wonderful Wizzley!

lou16 on 06/23/2011

There certainly is something very special about the humble butterfly. I've visited a few different butterfly farms around the world, but until now I hadn't thought about building my own.


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