LWT Factsheets

Gardening for butterflies

Gardening to attract butterflies not only enhances the beauty of your own garden but can perform a useful function in helping to conserve these beautiful insects. In the last 40 years, 12 species of butterfly have become extinct in Lincolnshire - the majority due to loss of habitat. Although your garden may be small compared with the wider countryside, it, along with many other gardens can provide food and shelter to adult butterflies and their caterpillars.

To see some of our less well known butterflies in the wild consult the Trust's Reserves Handbook and explore some of our nature reserves in the summer. A good place to start is Little Scrubbs Meadow, a small grassland within Bardney Forest. Twenty-six species of butterflies have been recorded here in recent years, including purple hairstreak, white admiral and speckled wood.

You can help butterflies by joining the Trust and supporting its work, and by planting suitable plants in your garden. Some of the caterpillar food plants are undesirable in the average garden (e.g. stinging nettles are the sole food plant for the caterpillar of the red admiral and the small tortoiseshell) but please bear them in mind. You can't have a butterfly without first having a caterpillar!

Some Nectar Food Plants for Butterflies

Oxeye Daisy Cornflower Campanula Hyssop Columbine Petunia Thyme Heliotrope Purple Loosestrife

Buddleia Polyanthus Sweet Rocket Aubretia Red Valerian Mignonette Michaelmas Daisies Yellow Alyssum Water Mint

Thrift (Sea Pink) Honesty Phlox Primrose Sweet William Catmint Wallflowers Scabious (various)

Caterpillar Food Plants

Species Foodplants Butterfly "flying time" Comma Nettles Hops Gooseberries Early Spring & May/June Common Blue Birds Foot-Trefoil Clover Rest Harrow Spring onwards Gatekeeper Tall Grasses Late Spring onwards Green-veined White Mustard Horseradish Cuckoo Flower Charlock Spring onwards Small White Cabbage Lettuce Mignonette April onwards Large (Cabbage) White Cabbage Nasturtium April – August Large Skipper Grasses June – August Meadow Brown Grasses June – September Painted Lady NOTE: These butterflies live in Africa and Southern Europe and migrate to Britain to breed Thistles Mallow Burdock Stinging Nettles April – August Peacock Nettles Hops Early Spring & August Red Admiral Nettles Early to Late Summer Ringlet Grasses June – August Small Copper Sorrells Knotgrass Summer to Late Autumn Small Heath Grasses Spring – Autumn Small Skipper Grasses June – August Small Tortoiseshell Nettles Spring onwards Very common Wall Brown Grasses May/June & August/Septernber Swallowtail Milk Parsley Angelica Wild Carrot Carraway Spasmodic April – August Very localised Rare