Butterfly Garden

Title: Butterfly Garden
Description: Learn about butterflies and how to attract them to your garden.
Season: Spring and summer
Length of Activity: 45 min
Age: 3-adult
Button: Start the Activity

Butterfly Garden
Butterflies are perhaps the most colorful, vibrant insects around. They come in all colors and sizes and people absolutely love to watch them float from flower to flower. But, they aren’t just pretty to look at. Besides bringing magical beauty to your garden, they also have a very important job. Like bees, they too are pollinators.

By attracting more butterflies to your yard and garden, you can help your garden grow.

That’s why today, we are going to learn how to make our very own butterfly feeder!

Supplies and Tools Needed:
● 1 ceramic or acrylic plate
● 1 10″-14″ wire plate holder
● String
● 1/2″ metal washer
● 1 new sponge
● Silk flowers and leaves
● Hot glue
● Glass beads
● Sugar
● Water
● Wire

Getting started

Step 1: Attach your wire plate holder to the back of your plate.

Step 2: Cut four pieces of string (about 24″ long) and tie the ends to the prongs that are gripping the edge of your plate.

Step 3: At random points along the four strings, thread some glass beads and secure them with knots on either side. These beads will help catch the light to attract the butterflies.

Step 4: Take the four strings and tie them together around a 1/2″ metal washer. This washer will be used later for hanging the feeder on a tree.

Step 5: Using a hot glue gun, attach brightly colored silk flowers to the strings at various points.

Step 6: Make your own butterfly food by mixing 10 parts water with one part sugar. Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves, and allow to cool. *CAUTION* Too much sugar can dehydrate butterflies. Be sure to stick to the recipe.

Step 7: Place the sponge in the center of the plate on top of some silk leaves and spoon some of the sugar water mixture onto the sponge until it is saturated but not overflowing. Then hang the butterfly feeder from a tree branch using wire connected to the washer. Check the feeder regularly to make sure there is plenty of sugar water in the sponge.

Taking it Deeper
What other insects do you think your butterfly feeder might attract? Are all of them beneficial to your garden? What might you be able to do in order to attract butterflies but detour those bugs that might harm your garden?

Further Reading
To learn more about butterflies and their unique lifecycle, this site has a wealth of knowledge. And, no lesson about butterflies would be complete without our all-time favorite storybook, The Hungry Caterpillar. Look for it at your public library or local bookstore or listen to it being read aloud here.

Further Watching
If you prefer watching to reading, here is a very informative children’s educational video about butterflies.