PHOTO: Tiger swallowtail butterfly on impatiens.

Mud puddling…

Imagine this:

PHOTO: Monarch butterfly on scarlet bloodflower.
A monarch butterfly enjoys the nectar of plants in the milkweed family (Asclepias species).

You are a monarch butterfly. You weigh less than one gram. You are traveling 1,000…2,000…perhaps 3,000 miles on migration from Mexico to your northern breeding grounds. You are desperate for flower nectar; for the safety and shelter of shrubs and trees; for shallow, still water to “mud puddle” in; and for milkweed plants on which to lay your eggs. Suddenly you see a sea of color—a flower-filled yard in a yawn of lawns…

You are a hummingbird. You weigh less than a pencil. You have just flown 500 miles nonstop (not to mention crossing the Gulf of Mexico) in search of the perfect spot to build your walnut-sized nest. You need fuel: the nectar from tube-shaped flowers, and lots of it, as in sips from 1,000 flowers per day. Suddenly you see a mass of flowers below…

PHOTO: Hummingbird hovers for nectar from a pink turtlehead bloom.
Pink turtlehead (Chelone glabra) is a late-summer favorite of hummingbirds.

You are a homeowner with a yard. You are weighing a new approach to your landscape: you’d like to incorporate butterfly/hummingbird-friendly plants. You’ve heard about butterfly bushes, and you picture a yard filled with flitting and fluttering all summer long.

You need Tim Pollak. He’s the outdoor floriculturist at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and he’s our resident butterfly guy, who teaches frequent classes at the Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Chicago Botanic Garden on the subject of attracting butterflies and hummers to your yard. Consider this a mini-class: in the video below, Tim brings you up close to flowering plants that are both butterfly-attractive and visually attractive to you and your neighbors.

Click here for Tim’s tip sheet of simple steps for attracting all sorts of winged creatures to your yard.

Imagine that!


©2013 Chicago Botanic Garden and my.chicagobotanic.org

Published by

Karen Z.

Karen Zaworski is a writer who likes to use as few words as possible, a photographer who still works with black-and-white film and a darkroom, and a gardener who actually likes to weed.