When kids experience a direct connection with nature they discover a sense of beauty,balance,and creativity.Facilitate this connection with nature by creating a butterfly garden that allows kids’s spirits to take flight and soar with the winged animals they observe.You and the kids will both be glad you did.
Butterflies have captivated and pleased people,both young and old for generations.The attractive transformation of earthbound caterpillars to winged butterflies captures the mind's eye like little else.For young kids,a butterfly garden has wonderful probable to give them the opportunity to watch growth,cycles,and change,as well as the chance to know how a creature fits into its atmosphere.
Unlike manicured gardens which are beautiful,but still,butterfly gardens are full of movement,even more so if permitted to get a bit feeble.When planting a butterfly garden you may find that you get more winged wildlife than you negotiated for.Hummingbirds will visit Lithonia flowers as often as butterflies,and songbirds will appreciate the seeds of cosmos long after butterflies have enjoyed the nectar.In addition,butterflies and caterpillars themselves are food for many kinds of birds.
Planting a Butterfly Garden
Creating a butterfly garden is not difficult.Butterflies will visit the backyard or garden if you plant aromatic,nectar-filled flowers along a sunlit wall or fence.If your funds allows,start your garden with seedlings from a garden center.If resources are limited,try starting the garden from seeds;they are more inexpensive and easier for little kids who can just toss handfuls of seed into a garden bed and then lightly scrape them into the soil.If you have the space,why not plan the outline of the garden to look like a butterfly?Flat,river-washed stones laid out as a path between the two wings of planting beds will serve as the body of the butterfly;it will also be a spot for butterflies to laze around in the morning sun.
Attracting Butterflies to the Garden by
Montessori training
Butterflies are particularly fond of mud puddles with rotting fruit or compost.Even if you don't want to provide muddy puddles of rotting fruit,a plastic tray filled with dirty soil somewhere in the garden will serve the same purpose.As you water the garden,the tray will fill with water and become a mud puddle where butterflies can draw dampness.
To create a flourishing butterfly environment,you'll need to grow plants for the caterpillars as well as for the adults they will turn out to be.Dill,fennel,parsley,
violet,clover,milkweed,thistle,and hop creeper attract caterpillars while adult butterflies are fascinated to the following flowers surveyed by ECCE teacher training programme:
•Bachelors button or cornflower—Centaurea cyanus
•Butterfly weed—Asclepias tuberosa
•Butterfly bush—Buddleia davidii
•Catnip—Nepeta
•Crown pink—Lynchis
•Lavender—Lavandula
•New York aster—Aster novi-belgii
Digging Deeper
Think about taking your butterfly garden one step advance by including edible plants.Kids will like this direct association with the natural environment.Some good choices are daylilies,redwood sorrel,carnations,hollyhocks,nasturtium,squash blossoms,and rose petals.Marigolds and violets are enjoyed by kids and butterflies,while crimson runner bean blossoms are beautiful to hummingbirds as well as kids.Always impress upon kids to ask an adult’s consent before eating any garden flowers.
