DIY Landscaping and Butterfly Garden

We’ve got butterflies! Monarchs, little yellow ones, a lavender one and a few others that I can’t wait to identify visiting our new landscaping. My DIY butterfly garden landscaping is about 4 weeks old and already has several butterflies visiting each day. We’ve finally started prettying up the outside of the house and I found a solution that looks beautiful, is environmentally friendly and low maintenance. Today is part 1 of a 2 part post on my DIY butterfly garden landscaping project that I’ve waited weeks to share with you all!
What’s simple to maintain, pretty, and environmentally friendly? Gardening with native (to your state) plants, adding butterfly friendly plants. They use less water, require little to no chemical fertalizers and naturally grow well in your area.
Everytime I look out our window, I see butterflies. They are beautiful to watch.
When we moved in to our project house 3 years ago, you couldn't see the house from the street. It was overgrown and mostly from 1 big bush. See the bush on the left? It was the Godzilla of bushes.
My son and I cleaned out and chopped branches for weeks.
Our empty front yard sat for the longest time. We painted the house and finished a lot of work on the inside. Needless to say, I was ready to make the outside look better with some curb appeal!
Before I could check out plants, I needed to identify our USDA hardiness zone, and our area’s characteristics. Here’s a good site to look up your hardiness zone or click here. You’ll also need to know details like your soil type. Is it sandy, clay or rich in organic matter? You’ll want to know how wet or dry your planned landscape area is and how much sun it gets.


I needed to see what the Florida native plants and butterfly friendly plants looked like to make sure I’d like them. Having the benefit of an experienced gardener and good friend who shared her books and lists of plants as well as a personal garden tour made that part easy. She also shared the North American Butterfly Garden Guides do a search online and you'll easily find this website to get a list of butterfly friendly plants. Just click on your area in your state.
With my gardens characteristics in mind, I made a list of the list of butterfly friendly plants that would work well in my yard. I picked my favorites based on color, mature size, growth habit, etc. Since I was planting a Monarch butterfly garden, I was careful to include plants that support the full life-cycle which included larva and nectar plants. I choose a dominant color theme from my list as well. I love how reds, oranges and yellows stand out against the deep grey blue color of my house.
Now that I had a list of which plants I liked, and would work in my yard, I started planning a layout. I made a rough draft of my front yard and the area I wanted to turn into my DIY butterfly garden and landscaping. I started designing my layout with the shapes of what I wanted each area to be filled with. I placed my plants in the same way I’d arrange a room. Starting with the biggest items first and working my way down to the small items or fillers. This is my landscape plan below. Simple, but it worked.Basically, I planned my new space with color, texture and mature shape in mind and choose my plants to fit my design.
This is part of my new project. I'll cover part 2, planting, preppeing the are and more in my next post. You can always see more on the blog.
Wendi @ H2OBungalow
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Marie Marie on Jun 03, 2018

    What are the pink flowers in your picture?

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 4 comments
  • Hannah V Hannah V on Jul 06, 2015
    Lovely! I would love to have more butterflies in my backyard, seeing one in Brooklyn is a rarity!
    • Wendi @ H2OBungalow Wendi @ H2OBungalow on Jul 07, 2015
      @Hannah V Thanks Hannah, I'd miss the open spaces and the butterflies if I were in the city:)
  • Kim Kim on Jul 22, 2017

    We just pulled out 17 bushes at my Mom's house. The landscapers in my area charge $50 per bush to remove!!! So I pulled them out, roots and all, with my CAR. For free. In about an hour. By myself. Woot!

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