Thursday, August 27, 2009

Attracting wild life to your garden

It is not easy to establish a garden which would attract butterflies, bees, sun birds if you are living in an over populated urban city with lots of pollution around. Situation gets worse if you have as little space as i have got. Sure plants can be grown in containers and they will flourish but nothing compared to those which are nourished by sweet mother earth. After all, plants get to know they are in containers, nah? what about a patch full of self seeding bright wild flowers!!!

Although butterflies do visit my garden many times a day but this lemon tree just next to my home is something all the butterflies and bees just adore. Sometimes i think that they come all the way to sip nectar from this tree instead and in the way they also visit my garden. well i don't mind it either. My dwarf murraya tree does compete hard and tries to allure those butterflies back through its intense sweet fragrance. The competition goes on.
butterfly on lemon flower















This bee also visited my murraya tree just before coming here but i could not capture it there.
bee on lemon flower















This butterfly was wandering around these phlox flowers and they were hundreds in a row. something i wish i could ever grow.
butterfly on dianthus flower















Now this wild flower garden is something i am talking about. Self seeding annuals in a natural way.
gaillardia wild growing lahore















Hope some day i will have a patch full of butterfly bushes with tons of butterflies around. Dreams never die actually.

13 comments:

Volunteer abroad India said...

I love your idea. I also thought of that. Imagine how wonderful it is to have a garden full of attractive flowers and beautiful butterflies!

Chloe m said...

Wonderful photos of the butterflies.
I hope you have a patch of flowers with butterflies fluttering around someday!
Rosey

joey said...

May all your dreams come true :)

Autumn Belle said...

The wild flowers are really beautiful. May you be blessed with beautiful butterflies and lovely blooms all year round.

Catherine@AGardenerinProgress said...

Well, from reading your previous posts you do have some beautiful flowers that I'm sure butterflies would love. I agree that it would be wonderful to have a large patch of wildflowers to leave "natural" and let the butterflies enjoy it.

LynnS said...

Someday your wish may come true.

Wildlife knows no boundaries and sometimes we must enjoy them from a distance. One of their endearments, I suppose.

The wildflowers are so pretty.

Amy said...

I have yet to capture an insect for my pictures. I like your blog and all your photos! I'll catch them one day...

Anonymous said...

Hi~~ Oh to grow the tropicals that are thriving right outside your door. The scent alone must be fabulous. What a divine paradise you've created.

However I will say that your pictured bee looks a tad menacing!

I know what you mean about wishing for more space. It took many years of frustration and heartache to be where I am now. I'm of the opinion that making the most of what we currently have will somehow open the door to our ultimate goal.

Anonymous said...

I like to encourage self seeders in my garden and my brother-in-law introduced me to the joy of wildflowers.

Donna

Racquel said...

What a pretty patch of blooms, that's a nice dream to have. :) We have had a shortage of butterflies this year, don't know where they all went. :(

Corner Gardener Sue said...

I love butterflies, too. I also wish I had more space, but lately, I've decided I have enough room to grow things, I just can't do things with the space that I'd like to do, like have paths that lead to different places. (Grace's place comes to mind.) We have a lot of cement on our property.

I hope you get more space one day.

Nell Jean said...

Thank you for visiting my blog. We grow some of the same flowers. Mandevilla has no fragrance that I've noticed.

Your Jasmine is beautiful. I grow Trachelospermum jasminoides, very fragrant and a strong climber.

One trick for attracting more butterflies is to plant host plants for the caterpillars who grow into butterflies. The larvae of yellow Sulphur butterfly in one of your pictures would like Cassia (senna) plants. Here, they prefer wild cassia weeds to the nicer Cassia alata. Maybe you already knew this.

Padma said...

During the season left over fruits can be cut into pieces and place them in a plate in your garden it attracts butterflies it worked with me

Padma


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