If you want to create a beautiful outdoor garden area for your home, consider a butterfly garden with colorful blooms. Butterfly gardens are not only visually interesting, but they are also beneficial for the environment. If you want a lovely garden that promotes a healthy landscape and great curb appeal, follow some tips from our real estate agents to create a stunning butterfly garden.

• Choose the Right Garden Site
  When choosing your garden site, it's important to select an area where you can plant a variety of plants, including trees, shrubs, vines, and perennials. By planting greenery that grows to different sizes and heights with various colors and flowers that bloom at different times during the year, you will create a garden that attracts a wide range of butterflies. Grouping a variety of plants will create unity in your garden and cut down the distance that butterflies have to travel for nectar.
  
  Butterflies are attracted to bright flowers, but they will linger longer if your garden also provides good shelter, water, and sun:
  
  
  • Shelter – Planting trees and shrubs will provide shelter from the wind so that butterflies will explore the area longer. It will also give butterflies a safe place to roost at night and hide from predators. Many trees and shrubs also provide food for caterpillars.
  • Water – Butterflies do need water, but not very much. Tree sap, dew, and nectar provide adequate moisture, but you can also install a fountain or create puddling stations in moist dirt or sand for water sources. Puddling stations also provide dissolved salts, which are healthy nutrients for butterflies.
  • Sun – Adequate sun is essential for butterfly gardens because butterflies are cold-blooded insects. They begin each day by warming up in the sun. When planning your garden site, find a spot that gets at least six hours of direct sunlight every day.
    
    
• Choose Flowering Plants
  Many flowering plants found near Atlanta homes for sale attract butterflies, but you need to choose plants that encourage butterflies to feed, lay eggs, and hang around. It's essential to choose both nectar plants that give butterflies energy and caterpillar food plants that provide nutrition.
   
  • Nectar Plants – There's a wide variety of colorful nectar plants, including Beebalm, Black-Eyed Susan, Goldenrod, Lantana, Lavender, Rosemary, Sedum, and Yarrow. These plants will fill your garden with colorful blooms that attract butterflies to nectar.
  • Caterpillar Food Plants – Butterflies are picky about their food sources and where they lay their eggs. Host plants that attract caterpillars for food include Angelica, Aster, Baptisia, Daisies, Ornamental Grasses, Pipe Vine, Snapdragon, and Sunflowers.
    
    
• Don't Forget the Rocks
  Adding different-sized rocks to your garden will invite butterflies to sunbathe and linger in the garden. To find a variety of rocks, visit a local landscaping business or purchase artificial rocks and bags of pebbles from a local garden center. It's best to purchase a variety of rock sizes that will allow butterflies to perch, rest, feed, and stay out of the wind.
  
  
• Avoid Using Pesticides
  Butterfly gardens promote a healthy environment for your home, so treat your landscape and garden like a miniature ecosystem. Avoid using insecticides, herbicides, and pesticides that contain toxic poisons. With a diversity of plants and flowers in your garden, you're not likely to attract a large number of harmful pests, and you'll be protecting natural predators that are beneficial to your butterfly garden.

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