So I did a bit of a hunt around for butterfly information. There's this article about a butterfly garden in Brisbane, which reminded me that a while back we went to the Cairns Butterfly place (my post is here) where I took photos of the different caterpillars being fed leaves of different plants in their hatching labs. So, yes, of course different butterflies prefer different plants. Why didn't I remember that? I didn't put that bit in a post is probably why! The pictures aren't real flash, but here they are.
I might have to look into this butterfly gardening. I love having butterflies flitting about, and I enjoy trying to get a good photo of them.
So... stand by for more butterfly photos, just as soon as I get my garden going better!
And if you'd like more butterfly garden info, here's a link for Melbourne gardeners, some general info, Brisbane plants sales, North coast NSW, Sydney (click on the invertebrate PDF), North Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia.So...anyone joining me in the butterfly garden growing?
All I know is buddelias - they're called 'The butterfly bush' I think. Or maybe that's something called 'Gaura' - but that looks like butterflies, whereas I think the buddelias/buddleias are butterfly attracting. I always thought I read somewhere that purple flowers attracted butterflies?
ReplyDeleteThere seem to be heaps of butterfly attracting plants - for flowers, pollens and nectar. It's quite amazing reading how many. And on those glass tank photos, the butterfly label is on the right and the feed plant on the left - and up there each butterfly only laid eggs on one species of plant (a different one per species of butterfly) and other food was not what the caterpillars would eat when they hatched, which seemed limiting...but that's what they were telling us in that butterfly lab.
DeleteCate xo