Lepidopteran Landscaping
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I suggest making an overhead of your garden area, and plotting where you will plant what. A box of colored pencils will allow you to make this a color diagram, which can be helpful in seeing your final vision. If nothing else, this gives you a nice plan to work from when you finally don your gloves and start digging and planting. Landscaping design has become quite sophisticated, as is demonstrated by the presence of so many schools teaching it. Right here in Tucson, we have the only fully accredited landscaping design college offering degrees in both landscaping design and management: Fleur de Lis Institute. I don't think their program yet encompasses Lepidopteran Landscaping, but maybe someday…

Personally, I don't like to put too many red plants into my garden. They are great accents, but too many of them drown out the less vibrant and cooler colors such as the blues, pale yellows, and whites. But as I said earlier, this is all a matter of your personal tastes and preferences. Besides, you can always move a plant or two later to get that final, perfect look.

Yellow butterflies accent the whites in a landscape design nicely, and they really pop out of the greens.

Just to help you get started, here are a few varieties of flowers and plants that attract Lepidoptera. Be sure to check whether the flora you select is tolerant of the sun or shade levels where you plan to plant them. These are just a very few of the plants that will work. There are many, many more: Lavender, Purple Coneflower, Yellow Sage, Sunflowers, Summer Lilac, Valerian, and Daisies.

Lastly, your colorful new friends do have some enemies. By this I mean creatures that will eat them, such as birds and lizards. There's really not much you can do about the lizards, but here's an idea for keeping the birds at bay. Buy an owl decoy – the kind used by hunters to attract crows. (Crows don't like owls and will attack them.) They're cheap, lightweight, and can be quite effective. They will work best if you move them occasionally. Owls are predators, and they will attack, kill, and eat birds. Basically, the owl acts as a scarecrow to birds. Moving the decoy occasionally enforces that the plastic façade is actually a real enemy, to be avoided.

No matter where you live, Lepidopteran Landscaping is a rewarding activity that will yield enjoyable results for many years to come. Now, it's time to get out the paper and colored pencils and start your first Lepidopteran Landscaping design.

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