Butterfly Garden for Adalyn

by Mae
(Pennsylvania, USA)

My daughter, Adalyn, just loves butterflies, and I love watching her chase them. My husband and I decided to build her a butterfly garden. By building her this garden, we wanted to teach her some about gardening and the responsibility of watering, and caring for plants. We also wanted her to reap the benefits of getting to see the butterflies, and we wanted her to get to experience caterpillars turning into butterflies as well.

We started off by planting black-eyed susans. Not only do they provide sweet nectar to butterflies like the Meadow Fritillary but they are absolutely gorgeous, and they liven up any garden. The black eyed susans also provide food to the Silvery Checkerspot caterpillars. My daughter loves them because yellow is her favorite color.

We then planted red clover as a food for the adult Silvery Checkerspot butterfly. It also doubles as a food for the Painted Lady butterflies. We also planted thistles and blazing star as more food for the Painted Lady butterflies that we get. Adalyn likes the Painted Lady because of it's name.

We have also planted dandelions and tulips in the garden for color and variety. Like I said before, Adalyn's favorite color is yellow, so the dandelions are another of her favorites.

On pretty days, we like to sit out in the garden on the benches that we built for my daughter. She has several butterfly identification books, and she likes to try to identify the ones that come up. She really loves her garden.

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