If you have some space to grow plants , and want to see butterflies over them, this blog could give you a head start.
The first serious thoughts about butterflies came around a year ago, when i realized, that i have stopped seeing them too often, its like something which was very common in your life and you only started noticing it when it is gone!!
Butterflies were the colorful part of my childhood. Little amused over their declining population ,i started to read about them over internet,books etc.The more i read,more i get confused since lots of stuff were present over internet.
However the summary of search was that these beautiful insects have very short life span, 15-20 days approx, and they are extremely sensitive to environment change.
so I would try to keep it simple here, this blog is entirely based on my experiment(which is still going on) for calling butterflies on my terrace.
Here we go!!
Butterflies mainly deal with 2 types of plants
1) Nectar plants = Butterflies comes in search of Nectar
2) Host Plants = Butterflies lay eggs there which turns into larva and it start eating the leaves of host plant.
some host plants name are
Heliotropes (Heliotropium indicum),
Snake Weed (Stachytarpheta indica),
Milk Weed (Asclepias curassavica)
Both, Host and Nectar plants are necessary , however initially you can try with Nectar plants as it solves two purpose.
1. |It gives color to your garden, which keeps you interested in plants
2. It will keep butterflies visiting your garden
I have divided my research over seasons
Spring Season (Feb_March-2018):
In terms of number of butterflies visits,spring season has not been much productive for me ,
Have not seen consistent butterfly visit.
The couple of reasons i can think of
1) Wind speed : wind speed in spring season is higher side as compared to winter. Butterflies prefer less windy place
2) Blooms : There are lots of blooms in spring so butterflies have better options available naturally
3) Lack of host plants : I observed white butterflies sitting over star ficus plant in nursery. This behavior of white butterflies were common wherever i found star ficus plat.
White butterflies are much dominated butterflies of spring. i mostly have nectar plant and very few host plants.
I had little success over spring. will be looking forward for summer , i had planted around 50 zinnia plants , few cosmos plants and couple of Gillardias.
i hope once they start blooming, i can have some better result this summer.
i will update my detail for this year in summer section .
Summer(April-June-2017) :
Summer has braught many butterflies to my gardern, since this blog is getting longer , so the summer experience is written in seprate blog!
which is Here
Winter :
Winters in Delhi are harsh especially during mid Dec to mid Jan, during this period, these beautiful creatures usually do not come out.However as temperature reach to moderate level ,there are many plants which attracts them
Lantana :
This is sure shot going to bring some butterflies to your terrace garden, it comes in shrubs category , but as far butterflies are concerned there is no match of this plant.
I was able to see this particular type of guldavri having multiple butterflies on this, however i had other varieties of guldavri as well, but the butterflies mostly stay away from them.
Another butterfly made my terrace its home , she spent hours sitting on walls , interestingly she does not sits on any plant , and she does not hesitates on playing with you , the one below sits on my mom hands.
Desi Marigold outcome
i planted desi marigold, it blooms till late summer and have strong fragnance.
people in cities unknowinly plant hybrid marigold, which is not much benificial to insects.
Desi marigold does not have any butterflies on it, however its a favorite spot for bees.
My experiment is still going on , based on internet search i tried with many flowers , but sadly below flowers are not much liked by butterflies.
Summer Plants:
Clitoria or Aparajita
Pentas
Hibiscus
Winter Plaants:
Passiflora Incarnata or Rakhi bel
Winter
Verbena
Gazania
The first serious thoughts about butterflies came around a year ago, when i realized, that i have stopped seeing them too often, its like something which was very common in your life and you only started noticing it when it is gone!!
Butterflies were the colorful part of my childhood. Little amused over their declining population ,i started to read about them over internet,books etc.The more i read,more i get confused since lots of stuff were present over internet.
However the summary of search was that these beautiful insects have very short life span, 15-20 days approx, and they are extremely sensitive to environment change.
so I would try to keep it simple here, this blog is entirely based on my experiment(which is still going on) for calling butterflies on my terrace.
Here we go!!
Butterflies mainly deal with 2 types of plants
1) Nectar plants = Butterflies comes in search of Nectar
2) Host Plants = Butterflies lay eggs there which turns into larva and it start eating the leaves of host plant.
some host plants name are
Heliotropes (Heliotropium indicum),
Snake Weed (Stachytarpheta indica),
Milk Weed (Asclepias curassavica)
Both, Host and Nectar plants are necessary , however initially you can try with Nectar plants as it solves two purpose.
1. |It gives color to your garden, which keeps you interested in plants
2. It will keep butterflies visiting your garden
I have divided my research over seasons
Spring Season (Feb_March-2018):
In terms of number of butterflies visits,spring season has not been much productive for me ,
Have not seen consistent butterfly visit.
The couple of reasons i can think of
1) Wind speed : wind speed in spring season is higher side as compared to winter. Butterflies prefer less windy place
2) Blooms : There are lots of blooms in spring so butterflies have better options available naturally
3) Lack of host plants : I observed white butterflies sitting over star ficus plant in nursery. This behavior of white butterflies were common wherever i found star ficus plat.
White butterflies are much dominated butterflies of spring. i mostly have nectar plant and very few host plants.
 | ||
| White butterfly resting on Star ficus plant |
I had little success over spring. will be looking forward for summer , i had planted around 50 zinnia plants , few cosmos plants and couple of Gillardias.
i hope once they start blooming, i can have some better result this summer.
i will update my detail for this year in summer section .
Summer(April-June-2017) :
Summer has braught many butterflies to my gardern, since this blog is getting longer , so the summer experience is written in seprate blog!
which is Here
Winter :
Winters in Delhi are harsh especially during mid Dec to mid Jan, during this period, these beautiful creatures usually do not come out.However as temperature reach to moderate level ,there are many plants which attracts them
Lantana :
This is sure shot going to bring some butterflies to your terrace garden, it comes in shrubs category , but as far butterflies are concerned there is no match of this plant.
 |
| Lantana |
Chrysanthemum or Guldavri (only this particular variety)
I was able to see this particular type of guldavri having multiple butterflies on this, however i had other varieties of guldavri as well, but the butterflies mostly stay away from them.
 |
| Chrysanthemums |
Another butterfly made my terrace its home , she spent hours sitting on walls , interestingly she does not sits on any plant , and she does not hesitates on playing with you , the one below sits on my mom hands.
 |
| Spotted in Jan 2018 |
 |
| Spotted in jan 2018 |
Desi Marigold outcome
i planted desi marigold, it blooms till late summer and have strong fragnance.
people in cities unknowinly plant hybrid marigold, which is not much benificial to insects.
Desi marigold does not have any butterflies on it, however its a favorite spot for bees.
My experiment is still going on , based on internet search i tried with many flowers , but sadly below flowers are not much liked by butterflies.
Summer Plants:
Clitoria or Aparajita
Pentas
Hibiscus
Winter Plaants:
Passiflora Incarnata or Rakhi bel
Winter
Verbena
Gazania
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