Mathew Tekulsky - The Art of Butterfly Gardening: How to Make Your Backyard into a Beautiful Home for Butterflies

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Copyright 2015 by Mathew Tekulsky

Photography copyright 2015 by Mathew Tekulsky

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Jane Sheppard

Cover photo credit: Mathew Tekulsky

Print ISBN: 978-1-63220-521-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63220-900-9

Printed in China

To my parents, Patience Fish Tekulsky and Joseph D. Tekulsky

Contents

Mathew Tekulsky photographing a Monarch butterfly

Photo courtesy of Patience Fish Tekulsky

Acknowledgments

At Skyhorse Publishing, I would like to thank my editor, Kristin Kulsavage, and Tony Lyons. Thanks, as well, to my literary agent, Peter Beren.

Zebra Heliconian

CHAPTER 1

What Is Butterfly Gardening?

It is a calm, sunny afternoon, with a hint of a breeze. You are standing in a meadow, rich with flowers of red, orange, purple and yellow. Suddenly, over a row of daisies, a Monarch butterfly appears. The orange and black Monarch flaps its wings, changes direction, and settles onto the ball-shaped flower head of a buttonbush. Immediately it unrolls its proboscis and starts to feed from the scores of tiny white flowers. A few minutes later, it flies away, disappearing over a bed of lavender.

Monarch

Butterflies, such as the Monarch, epitomize all that is ethereal, peaceful and free. Wild creatures, they inhabit a domain that existed for millions of years without man. But, like some birds, certain butterflies have adapted to human changes and are able to flourish in rural areas, towns, and cities. Thus, you dont have to visit the far reaches of the countryside to enjoy the combined beauty of butterflies and flowers. You can create scenes like the one described above right in your own garden. Whether you live on a farm or in the city, all you have to do to attract butterflies is to cultivate plants they like.

Wherever you live, you have a chance to see butterflies: on mountains, by the seashore, across prairies, in swamps and forests, even in deserts. And wherever butterflies occur, butterfly gardening may be practiced. By knowing their needs and accommodating them, you can plan and predict which butterflies will appear. If you have a suburban yard, butterfly gardening is an ideal way to add some color to the neighborhood. If your neighbors join in, the whole block can be changed for the better and brighter. The limits lie in your imagination and the preferences of the butterflies themselves.

People have been enjoying butterfly gardening for as long as butterflies, plants, and humans have coexisted. One of the earliest butterfly gardeners was Aristotle, who described the life history of the Cabbage White. In 1912, Charles McGlashan and his daughter Ximena started a butterfly farm in Truckee, California, as a way for Ximena to make money by collecting and rearing butterflies for sale. The business blossomed, and Ximena became the toast of the press, which dubbed her The Butterfly Queen. A year later, the McGlashans started a publication called The Butterfly Farmer: A Monthly Magazine for Amateur Entomologists. The magazine contained information on how to raise butterflies, as well as directions for pinning, mounting and preserving specimens. Ximena used the money toward a degree in botany and entomology from Stanford University in 1915. She soon married, and butterfly farming took a back seat to raising her family.

In the early 1930s, Albert Carter and his wife Amy raised as many as 16,000 butterflies at one time in a 100-square-foot, screened-in hillside area which they called Butterfly Park. Located in Sunland, California, the park was open to visitors, for free, and included labeled plants, waterfalls, picnic tables, and peacocks. For a number of years, the Carters published a magazine called Butterfly Park Nature Club News, which, like the McGlashanss journal, provided information on how to raise butterflies for fun and profit. In addition to specimens, the Carters sold trays, jewelry, and other items that they decorated with butterflies. The park was closed in 1935.

Perhaps the modern worlds most famous butterfly gardener was Sir Winston Churchill. In the spring of 1939, Churchill decided to start a butterfly garden at his Chartwell estate and enlisted the help of L. Hugh Newman and Newmans father, who had founded a butterfly farm nearby to provide butterflies to the public. However, World War II broke out a few months later, and it wasnt until 1946 that Churchill was able to make his butterfly garden a reality. Newman supplied the garden with more than eleven species, including the Red Admiral and Painted Lady (which also occur in North America), as well as British species such as the Peacock, Brimstone and Small Tortoiseshell. For several years, he provided 1,000 to 1,500 butterflies per year. In 1947, Newman released about 200 Small Tortoiseshells and Peacocks on the grounds so that people attending a political garden party the next day could enjoy the butterflies fluttering around the valerians and other flowers. Churchill even had a summerhouse converted into a butterfly house and spent many hours inside it, watching different types of butterflies emerge from their chrysalises.

Newman notes that Churchill carefully avoided killing a single insect. It was live butterflies he wanted to see flying in his garden and in the park. He goes on to say that Churchill wanted to increase the number of butterflies in his immediate neighborhood as well. I am certain, he concludes, that during the years when I was regularly turning out specially bred or surplus stock for Chartwell there was a great resurgence of the butterfly population in that part of Kentthanks to Mr. Churchill.

In order to have your own butterfly garden, you dont have to go to Churchills extremes. In fact, you can begin with very little effort and expense. All you need are plants for the adult butterflies (nectar sources) and plants for the caterpillars (larval foodplants).

Butterflies sip the nectar of many flowers throughout the day, by sucking through a tube called a proboscis, which they uncoil from under their heads. Just as we relish the taste of honeysuckle nectar, so do butterflies. Many nectar sources have flat heads consisting of numerous tiny florets (such as daisies); others have a cluster of small flowers in a dome, or along a spike.