Indoor Butterfly Gardens

Acquisition

• As indoor butterfly gardens are artificial environments, their inhabitants must be acquired by the entity operating it. Some museums, such as the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., concentrate on butterflies from a specific locale, which in their case is on species from the eastern United States. Others import from all over the world. Victoria Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, for example, imports butterflies weekly from farms in various tropical countries. Victoria Butterfly Gardens also breeds many species in house.

Life Cycle

• One of the goals of public butterfly gardens is to showcase the insect's life stages. Butterflies have four distinct life stages: eggs, larvae or caterpillar, pupae or transformation and adult. The caterpillar and adult stages are the most visible ones, but appropriate food and habitat must be provided for each.

  Eggs are often little more than specks, and therefore difficult for the naked eye to see. Females lay them near food sources. The emerging caterpillars devour food voraciously and grow quickly. Caterpillars shed their skin four times before reaching the pupae or chrysalis stage where transformation takes place. When the chrysalis becomes transparent, the butterfly is ready to emerge and find food and a mate.

Habitats

• Four different habitats may be represented in a butterfly garden. These are: woodlands, wetlands, meadows and urban gardens. A variety of flora, which are not necessarily food sources, such as grasses and trees, are present, as well as water and rocks for warming purposes, as these are important elements in butterfly habitats.

Nectar

• Food sources are an important element in all butterfly habitats. Flowers and many flowering plants that are considered to be weeds are an important source of food for adult butterflies and caterpillars. Therefore, indoor butterfly gardens are colorful places thanks to the insects' food choices. Some of the more common plants found are: aster milkweed, purple coneflower, butterfly bush, thistle, phlox, zinnia and black-eyed susan.

Education

• Because butterfly gardens exist, in part, to educate the public about these insects, most, if not all, have some type of guided tour explaining habitats and life cycle. At the very least, expect detailed placards explaining habitats and life cycles at appropriate intervals throughout the butterfly garden.