Eco Kids

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Check out more Eco Kids projects on the EcoSRQ Blog

Eco Kids

Backyard Butterfly Garden

A fun project for kids of all ages is building a Backyard Butterfly Garden. Whether a tiny patio or a large back yard, your home can be a haven for these beautiful visitors. Butterflies need a few simple requirements if they want to call your back yard home. First, adult butterflies need food. Butterflies feed on nectar from flowering plants. A variety of nectar plants will attract a great variety of butterflies. Plants native to Florida are typically better for your Sarasota backyard garden as a greater variety of butterfly species will be adapted to use plants that are native to the area. Second, in order to 'grow your own' butterflies, you will need plants that caterpillars can eat. Caterpillars often have very specific host plant species on which they feed. For example, Monarch caterpillars (shown below) only feed on plants in the milkweed family. Providing milkweed plants in your butterfly garden design, almost guarantees that you will have baby monarchs munching on your plants.

For more information on monarchs and other cool projects, such as tagging and counting monarchs, check out Monarch Watch

Here's a list of easy to grow starter plants for your butterfly garden. Many of these plants do well in pots and can be used on a small patio or balcony. To find some of the native plants on this list check out the Native Plant Nursery.

Native Nectar Plants

Milkweed (Asclepias spp.)- nectar and host plant for Monarchs