Creating a Butterfly Garden [Paperback]

Marcus Schneck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 6, 1994

Plan a colorful paradise for butterflies in your garden by planting and maintaining the kinds of flowers, shrubs, trees, and other plants that these fluttering beauties will find irresistible. This lovely and practical guide offers a variety of garden plans designed to attract butterflies, and helps you select plants for different stages in their lives, from food plants for caterpillars to nectar plants for adults. As these gorgeous visitors flock to your fragrant garden, you'll enjoy referring to the butterfly identifier included in Creating a Butterfly Garden. From detailed gardening information to fascinating facts on the life cycles of these winged creatures, here is everything you need to know to let a butterfly sanctuary blossom in your backyard.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Marcus Schneck, founder and director of the Backyard Wildlife Association, is a natural history writer and photographers, and the author of several books on butterflies and hummingbirds, including Creating a Hummingbird Garden. He lives in Pennsylvania.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

GARDEN BUTTERFLY CONSERVATION

Could there be a more mystical way to spend a gentle summer's afternoon than lolling on a bed of grassy carpet among a jungle of flowering plants and watching wispy wings of bright color flit above us? This spot could be your backyard butterfly garden.

Many butterfly species are easily attracted to our gardens. We have been luring these creatures for years with our traditional flower beds, often without a passing thought of the visitors that would eventually bring added coloring to the results of our labors.

When we set out to design our gardens with butterflies in mind, filling them with plants and flowers that will attract and nurture the insects, the results can be spectacular. There are generally dozens of species in nearly every region of the continent that will respond, bringing with them a variety of color that is matched by no other group of wildlife.

Today across much of North America, the backyard and the garden are the dominant habitat types. Whether intended or not, people are the determining factor in what's available to much wildlife, butterflies and others. We are now an important element in the conservation of many species.

Humankind's legacy to the butterfly has largely been one of destruction and devastation. Most species are intensely tied to their environments and cannot withstand our ever-growing pressures of development and land consumption.

However, in recent years, we have been increasing the space devoted to our gardens, and even specifically to backyard wildlife habitats. In some urban, drought or otherwise inhospitable environments, our gardens help to maintain the local butterfly populations. Some species, such as the more common swallowtails, seem to have responded recently with some very strong population years.

One of the most important conservation decisions we can make concerns the use of pesticides, which should be avoided in the butterfly garden. Most of these chemicals are non-selective in the insects that they destroy, be they pests or desirable species like the butterflies. Even some "organic" pest-control methods have been found to be harmful to butterflies.

Copyright © 1993 Quarto Publishing Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (May 6, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671892460
• ISBN-13: 978-0671892463
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 5.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #507,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #73 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Animals > Butterflies

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A clear, concise, and informative book, March 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Creating a Butterfly Garden (Paperback)

This little book clearly describes the life cycle of a butterfly and what a garden needs to attract and retain butterflies. The descriptions of plants are brief but provide enough information for further research should one desire. The plants are organized by season which is very helpful. There is a nice butterfly identification section in the back of the book to round out the enjoyment of a garden. The author even lists some butterfly suppliers for those who want a head start on nature. This book is perfect for successfully planning and implementing a butterfly garden.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very very basic book, August 5, 2001

By 

merrymousies (Waterford, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating a Butterfly Garden (Paperback)

There are much better books on buttrerfly gardening out there than this one - I recommend Butterfly Gardening by the Xerces Society. Its got not only the plants that butterflies like but also the lifecycle of butterflies. Creating A Butterfly Garden is like the hummingbird gardening book by the same author - very very basic with listings of plants and drawings of gardens but little more. You can get what's offered in these books off the internet. I ended up spending a little more to get a decent book that got me further below the surface and have a great butterfly garden going - variety is the key. The more kinds of flowers, the more kinds of butterflies. Its important to recognize that to have butterflies you need to have caterpillars too and they are fun to provide for and watch develop as well

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars basic, August 10, 2002

By 

merrymousies (Waterford, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating a Butterfly Garden (Paperback)

A good starter book but you can find more info by just looking on the web. It does have some good layouts for gardens but my issue was I wanted native plants and they don't tell you in this book if they're native or if they came from asia or elsewhere. I found other references that were far better but this is a start. Its just very basic.