Butterfly Garden

Here is everything you need to make your butterfly garden. A plant pot- the bigger the better. Anything is beneficial but the bigger and more varied your butterfly garden is, the more species you'll be likely to attract. Next you'll need compost. If you don't have any lying around but you have full pots from last year, you can give that compost a new lease of life if you have some plant food. I'll explain how in the next step. Next you need a variety of butterfly friendly plants. You also need a shallow dish and some marbles/large beads/pebbles. Finally some pebbles to finish it off (optional).

So first you need to fill your pot with compost. I revitalised some compost which was already in this pot, hence there not being a photo of the empty pot. I guess most people will have compost at home but for those who don't, all I did was remove old roots etc from last year's plants, add some flowering plant food and give it a good mix around.

Once you have a full plant pot, you can start adding your plants. I've put my biggest plant in the back centre,so it's a bit like a feature. Then other plants are added around it. I've tried to base where I position plants based on how quickly and how big the plants grow. Although I'm not a plant expert so it may need juggling around later in the season if it starts to look messy (although to be honest my main focus is the butterflies so aslong as no plants are competing with others I may just leave it however it grows). I've got in mine: small strawberry plants, lavender, borage, a couple of wild flower seedlings and marigolds

Next you'll need a shallow dish. I've used a dish that came with a starter to a meal from the supermarket but there are endless alternatives- ice cream tub lid, saucer, etc.

Once you've chosen your container, fill it with water and add some pebbles/marbles/glass beads to ensure any butterflies who come to use the station can get out if they fall in.

Position your butterfly drinking station in your butterfly garden and then (if you want to and you have some to hand) cover the surface of the compost between the plants with pebbles. We also added a couple of decorations we already had in the garden. Both of these things are for appearance only and have no effect on the use of the butterfly garden.

There you have it! A simple, quick butterfly garden. Almost everything is flexible in this project so I hope this means lots of people can do it without having to go out. The types of plants are changeable (aslong as you stick to plants loved by butterflies of course), the pot size and shape is up to you, the drinking station container can be any number of things and the final bits of decoration can be adapted to suit whatever you have in your garden already.