
BUTTERFLY GARDENING
Cultivating Butterfly Plants
Many people are surprised at how easy it is to attract butterflies to
their gardens once they have tried. Want to help our butterflies survive in
built-up Singapore? Just grow these plants:
1. Cultivated
Plants
These are easy to grow, keeping in mind:
a. Plant in good potting soil with compost mixed in. Packet soil may be
bought at garden centres. Specify that you want the burnt earth and top-soil
mix.
b. Most need at least morning sunlight for
proper growth & flowering. Some, like the Pagoda plant and the Aristolochia
vine, do better in shaded, more humid conditions.
Golden Dewdrop*
(Duranta species)
|
bushy with pretty flowers and fruit,
|
Ixora*
|
Especially red flowered varieties
|
Lantana*
|
Red or orange flowered varieties, experiment with other colours
|
Pentas*
|
Forms a compact bush. Looks like Ixora
|
Pagoda Plant
(Clerodendron paniculatum)
|
Favoured by Papilios like the gorgeous Common Birdwing butterfly
|
2.
Wildflowers – easy to grow
Wildflowers are growing right
under your nose! They can be seen sprouting out of a pavement crack, by the sides
of drains, among your ‘garden plants’ (that’s why we call them weeds!), on undeveloped
land etc.
Easily started from seeds or
cuttings, they are usually not fussy about their soil! All have a beauty on
their own!
Key: N = nectar, C = caterpillar
food
Key
|
Name
|
Description
|
N
|
Cordia
|
This is indeed a butterfly bush!
Popular with many species especially with the Striped Albatross butterfly.
Now you can finally see the difference in colour patterns between the sexes
when a group of them is sipping together.
|
N, C
|
Chinese Violet
(Aystasia intrusa)
|
Very popular with most
butterflies. Almost non-stop flowering with purple-tongued flowers!
|
N
|
Coat Buttons
(Tridax procumbens)
|
Popular with smaller
butterflies like the Lesser Grass Blues. Very pretty to look at, especially
when grown on the lawn, with the flower-heads nodding in the breeze. Just don’t
mow so often!
|
N
|
Snakeweed
(Stachytarpheta indica)
|
Another butterfly food-bar
plant
|
N
|
Sea Oxeye Daisy
(Wedelia biflora)
|
|
N, C
|
Purple Cleome
Wild Cat’s Whiskers
|
|
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Caterpillar Food Plants
Most of these plants are easy to
grow, even in pots by your window or balcony. Urban butterflies frequenting
high-rise mini-gardens include Lime and Leopard, if their foodplants are grown.
And of course, no chemical pesticides or fertilizers should be used. Just sit
back and wait for your pretty visitors to arrive!
Citrus (lime, pomelo)*
|
Lime Butterfly (U), Common
Mormon (U), Great Mormon (pomelo)
|
Curry leaf *#
|
Common Mormon (U)
|
Weeping Willow *@
|
Leopard (U)
|
Bushy Cassia *
|
Orange Emigrant (U)
|
Golden Showers Cassia*
(Cassia fistula)
|
Lemon Emigrant (U)
|
Seven Golden Candlesticks (Cassia alata) **
|
Mottled Emigrant (U)
|
Saga #
|
Hebe Nawab
|
Chinese Violet
(Asystasia intrusa) **#@
|
Great Eggfly
|
Crotalaria sp.**#
|
Peablue
|
Urena sp. **#
|
Neptis sp.
|
Bloodflower
(Asclepias currasavica)
|
Plain Tiger
|
Crown flower
(Calotropis gigantea)
|
Plain Tiger
|
Milkweed Vine **#
|
Tiger spp.
|
Dutchman’s Pipe
(Aristolochia tagala)**
|
Rare Common Birdwing and Common
Rose. A firm support will be needed for this climber to grow on.
|
Wild Cat’s Whiskers #
|
Psyche (U), Striped Albatross
(U), Cabbage White (U)
|
Albizia #
|
Common Grass Yellow (U)
|
Wild Cinnamon *
(Cinnamomum iners)
|
Bluebottle, rare Common Mime
|
Cycad *
|
Cycad Blue. The plant may look
bald once in awhile after being nibbled, but the leaves will grow back.
|
MacArthur’s Palm & Yellow
Cane Palm *
|
Palmfly
|
Key:
* commonly
available at garden centres
** seeds available from Nature Society (Singapore).
Note: Email us with the subject header "Caterpillar Food Plant Seeds" at contact@nss.org.sg. Only for Singapore citizens
and residents.
@ easily grown from cuttings
# wild
plant easily grown from seed
(U) urban butterflies
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Plant Reference
The pocket guide book series
published by Science Centre Singapore is handy and useful for identification
purposes. Check out these titles:
Butterflies of Singapore
Wayside Trees of Singapore
Common Horticultural Shrubs
Common Wildflowers of Singapore
Other suggested titles include:
Plants and Flowers of Singapore & Plants and Flowers of Malaysia by Dr. Ivan Polunin