Gardening for Butterflies

How to create native garden habitats to attract butterflies

tawny-edged skipper butterfly

The Tawny-Edged Skipper Butterfly

Butterfly Profiles, Gardening for Butterflies

The Tawny-edged Skipper butterfly is in the Lepidoptera family (butterflies and moths). Skippers were once thought to be a third category that was a bit of both – butterfly and moth. Experts now agree that Skippers are butterflies. They are different from most butterflies in that they have large heads and moth-like, stout, fuzzy bodies making them more effective pollinators than most butterflies. They are small and dart about quickly when they fly, hence their name ‘Skippers’.

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Bog Copper butterfly

Bog Copper Butterflies

Butterfly Profiles, Gardening for Butterflies

Bog Copper butterflies are found exclusively in bogs where wild cranberry, their host plant, grows. Bog coppers will spend their entire lives in a single acid bog. They are important pollinators of both large and small wild cranberry plants. They nectar almost exclusively on cranberry flowers and drink dewdrops on the leaves and petals. Bog Coppers are rarely found in commercial cranberry farms as they are sensitive to pesticides and constant disruptions.

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harris' checkerspot butterfly

The Harris’ Checkerspot Butterfly In Your Garden

Butterfly Profiles, Gardening for Butterflies

The Harris’ Checkerspot butterfly’s larval host plant is a singular plant species, the Flat-topped Aster (Aster umbellatus). The Harris’ Checkerspot butterfly is never far from where its host plant grows. Fortunately, the Flat-topped White Aster is a prolific plant that grows on rural roadsides and ditches, in wet meadows, pastures, riversides, and bog edges.

Growing Flat-topped Aster

Attract the Harris’ Checkerspot butterfly to your butterfly garden by growing its host plant, Flat-topped Aster. The Flat-topped Aster will thrive in full sun to part shade. It prefers slightly acidic soil that is medium, medium-wet and wet. It can grow up to 5 feet tall. The blooming season is from July to October. It spreads via rhizomes and self-seeding.

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the mourning cloak butterfly

The Mourning Cloak Butterfly In Your Garden

Butterfly Profiles, Gardening for Butterflies

Mourning Cloaks may be the longest-lived butterflies, living 10 – 12 months. Mourning Cloak butterflies overwinter as adults. They find shelter for the winter in tree crevices, log piles, leaf litter, and other sheltered places. Their bodies shut down, and they hibernate until early spring. Mourning cloaks are freeze-tolerant and can survive temperatures as cold as -60 °C (-76°F).
The Mourning Cloak butterfly gets its name from the traditional cloak worn when in mourning. The Latin name, Nymphalis, comes from the word nymph, and Antiopa was the daughter of Ares, the god of war, in Greek mythology.

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northern azure butterfly

The Northern Azure Butterfly In Your Garden

Butterfly Profiles, Gardening for Butterflies

The Northern Azure is a small blue butterfly that you can attract to your butterfly garden by planting its host and nectar plants. This little butterfly flits about so quickly that you may not have noticed it while walking in its habitat areas. But once you learn about the Northern Azure butterfly and recognize their habitat, you will see pretty little flashes of blue flitting among the flowers and shrubs.

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the viceroy butterfly

The Viceroy Butterfly In Your Garden

Butterfly Profiles, Gardening for Butterflies

The Viceroy butterfly is a mimic in all stages of its life. As an adult, the Viceroy butterfly uses Mullerian mimicry to defend itself against predators. The Viceroy and the Monarch butterfly mimic each other indicating with their bright colours that they are foul-tasting and somewhat toxic to predators.
The Viceroy eggs deceive predators by resembling plant galls and the caterpillars and chrysalis resemble bird droppings.

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