Butterflies have a special magic, and watching them fluttering around your garden or stopping to sip nectar on a flower lifts the heart. As someone once said, ‘look after the insects and the rest of nature will look after itself’, so by helping butterflies you are supporting biodiversity more widely too.
Here are a few tips:
- Bin the chemicals! Do you really need that insecticide or herbicide? Anything you spray will likely harm a range of insects including butterflies.
- Grow wildflowers and allow some areas of your garden to remain unmown. Butterflies evolved with our native flowers, so many flowers, sometimes dismissed as weeds, provide nectar food – buttercups, dandelions, clover and the lovely wildflowers in bloom now like knapweed and scabious.
- Plant some herbs and create a win-win for the family and butterflies. Many yummy herbs like marjoram, fennel and chives are great for butterflies too.
You can find more great information on https://biodiversityireland.ie/
