How to Create Butterfly Habitat in Your Outdoor Space
Want to invite butterflies to live with you year round? Give them a four season home - butterfly habitat! Habitat is the natural home of all wildlife and provides everything they need to live out their life cycles from generation to generation.
The lifecycle of butterflies includes butterfly, egg, caterpillar, and chrysalis. The five steps listed below will explain how to support and sustain butterflies through all stages of life. Whether you care for acres of land or a potted plant on a windowsill, complete each step to transform your outdoor space into a sanctuary for butterflies. You may find that it becomes a sanctuary for yourself as well!
1. Provide Nectar Plants
The first step to creating a butterfly habitat is to add plants that attract butterflies with the promise of a reward - nectar. Nectar is the sugary fluid made by flowers to attract pollinators. In addition to sugar and water, nectar provides butterflies with nutrients such as amino acids, proteins, enzymes, and vitamins. Choose nectar plants with different bloom times so that when one plant species stops blooming another begins.
Butterflies generally feed only in the sun, so pick the sunniest spot in your garden to grow your nectar plants.
Joe-pye weed is an example of a nectar plant - it provides nectar for a large variety of butterflies.
A butterfly puddling station can be made using simply a dish, sand, a stone or two, and of course - water!
2. Provide a “Puddling Station”
The second step in creating a habitat for butterflies is to provide them with a “puddling station”. What’s a puddling station? It’s a water source for butterflies, but that’s not all. A puddling station also provides butterflies with essential nutrients and salt. If you have puddles or moist dirt and/or sand in a sheltered area close to your nectar plants, then you already have a puddling station. If not, a shallow dish of water with plenty of sand and a few stones for resting spots can be used as an alternative.
3. Provide Host Plants
The third step in creating a habitat for butterflies is to provide them with “host plants”. The plants that caterpillars eat are called “host plants”. Each species of butterflies has specific host plants on which the adult butterflies lay their eggs.
The butterflies are particular about where they lay their eggs because their caterpillars must have that specific host plant to survive. The caterpillars wont eat if they don’t have access to their specific host plant and will die without it.
Some of the best “host plants” are native trees and shrubs*. Some host a huge variety of butterfly species, and all trees and shrubs can double as shelter.
Native violets serve as the host plant for the Great spangled fritillary.
*IMPORTANT NOTE: Make a special effort to seek out plant species that are native to New Jersey. Why? Having co-evolved over thousands of years, native wildlife and native plants have grown to rely on each other in order to successfully complete their life-cycles. Like old friends, they recognize and rely on each other for survival.
Autumn’s fallen leaves are home to spring’s butterflies! They shelter butterfly larvae and pupae throughout the winter, allowing them to emerge in spring to begin their lifecycles anew.
4. Leave the Leaves
The fourth step in creating habitat for butterflies is essential - leave the leaves! “Leaf litter” (fallen leaves and other dead plant material) are home to butterfly larvae (caterpillar) and pupae (chrysalis). It shelters them throughout the winter, and in spring they emerge to complete their life cycles.
So rather than tidying your garden and disposing of next spring’s butterflies, leave the dead plants standing and rake your fallen leaves into the garden beds. In spring, leave the leaves where they are and save yourself the time and expense of mulching.
5. Do NOT Use Pesticides!
Congratulations! You’ve provided everything that butterflies need to thrive in your garden:
1. Nectar plants
2. Puddling station
3. Host plants
4. Leaf litter
Now all you need to do is protect them from harm by following step five:
5. Do NOT use pesticides or buy plants that have systemic pesticides!!!
Why not use pesticides? They will kill ALL insects - not just the ones you’re attempting to eliminate (e.g. Mosquito Joe kills mosquitos, and everything else).
Same story with using plants that have pesticides running through their veins - in addition to eliminating plant pests, they’ll poison and kill the caterpillars who munch on their leaves.
If you must use them, let’s say herbicide to remove an invasive plant, then use sparingly and in spot applications - rather than blanketing an entire area. Your butterflies will thank you!
“How to Create Butterfly Habitat in New Jersey” was written and illustrated by Vicky Katzman in partnership with the Rutgers Environmental Steward Program and the Native Plant Society of New Jersey 2022.
To download a PDF version of this guide along with additional resources for creating butterfly habitat in NJ, click below.
