Butterfly Food
In the wild butterflies consume several different food sources to sustain them, including drinking nectar from a wide variety of garden and wild flowers, particularly those in warm and sheltered places. Adult butterflies enjoy the nectar from marigolds, bluebells, buttercups, hyacinth, lavender, blackberry bushes and thistles, among others. They also feast on tasty delights like rotting vegetation and over-ripe fruit.
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Butterflies are beautiful and unique insects that can be a joy to behold in our gardens. Watching them flit from flower to flower can be enchanting and there are 56 species in the UK.
Sadly, butterfly numbers are in decline and the number of butterflies has dropped by a quarter since the 1970s, due to loss of habitat, pollution and climate change. Give butterflies a helping hand by making your garden a safe place for these delicate creatures.
What can I feed my butterflies?
There are several ways to attract more butterflies into your garden. This includes planting bright and fragrant flowers, avoiding the use of pesticides and leaving fallen fruit under trees.
You can also use our special butterfly food. Our food is a 100 percent natural specially-formulated blend, which includes essential vitamins suitable for British butterflies and moths.
The mix is easy to prepare, mixing one round teaspoon in 100ml water and can be used with a butterfly feeder or put into a shallow dish. Read more about butterfly houses and feeders for the garden.
The butterfly food solution has been formulated to ensure the sugars do not crystallise in the stomach of the insect, which can be a risk with refined sugar solutions.
What flowers attract bees and butterflies?
As well as fruit cocktails, butterflies do, of course, eat a great deal of nectar from flowers. Among their favourites are buttercups, hyacinths and bluebells.
If you’re also trying to attract those other great pollinators – bees – there’s lots of crossover in the flowers they favour. Lavender, marigolds, field scabious, honeysuckle, sedum, heather and aster are just some of your options for both bees and butterflies.
In addition, ivy is often a crucial source of nectar in the colder months, when the sweet stuff is harder to come by.
How to attract butterflies
If you want butterfly visits, you should make sure you’re growing nectar-rich flowers from March to November. Spring is an especially important time because butterflies are emerging from hibernation or have just reached our shores after migrating.
But aside from giving them a menu of butterfly food, fruit and/or nectar, there are several things you can do to bring butterflies to your garden.
One of the most obvious ways to help butterflies is to refrain from using pesticides, which can kill them.
We can help, talk to us
Would you like to find out more or ask us some questions about butterflies and what to feed them? We are committed to helping you create the perfect sanctuary for your butterflies, birds and other wildlife. Please call on freephone: 0800 085 4865.
