Butterfly Gardening at The Village
Children seem fascinated by butterflies and caterpillars. A great introduction to this world is the Monarch Butterfly which is large and colourful, common in urban areas and which often flys slowly and gracefully through our playground. In 2008 The Village started a Butterfly Garden to extend on this interest. In 2009 The Village became part of the Monarch Butterfly tagging project run by the Monarch Butterfly Trust. This involves placing a small sticker on the autumn butterflies to try and discover where they go in the winter. The Monarch is one of the world's most familiar and widespread butterfly species, famous for its epic migrations from Canada and the USA to Mexico, where they gather in tens of millions and their weight can bend tree branches. With New Zealand's more temperate climate we don't know if they have similar spots to overwinter in New Zealand, or where these spots are. Hopefully someone will find one of our butterflies and we'll be able to show the children where they went and plot their journey on a map.
Creating a Butterfly Garden
There are two kinds of plants in a Butterfly Garden. Caterpillars need specific host plants to nibble on and Butterflies need nectar plants to feed from.
- Host Plants
Monarch Caterpillars will only feed on plants from the Asclepias and Gomophocarpus families, ie the american milkweeds and the african swan plant families. These are not native to New Zealand, so this is probably the limiting factor in their population here. Our Butterfly Garden has Swan Plant (Gomophocarpus fruticosus), Giant Swan Plant (Gomphocarpus physocarpus) and two varieties of Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica), the gold variety and the scarlet variety known as Bloodflower. This year we are hoping to establish the frost hardy Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). The Native Red Admiral Butterfly Caterpillars only feed on plants from the stinging nettle family, so maybe we could get some of those as well.
- Nectar Plants
Butterflies will feed from a wide range of nectar plants, although some have been noted to be particular favourites. Generally older varieties and wildflowers have better nectar supplies than modern hybrid plants that have been bred for a particular look. Butterflies prefer blocks of a single type as they are short-sighted, but it is good to have a variety to cover all the seasons.So for example:
- Spring and Summer: Salvias, Marigold (tagetes), Buddleia, Asters, Zinnia, Nasturtiums, Honeysuckles etc.
- Autumn: Salvias, Asters, Chrysanthemum daisies etc
- Winter: Camelias, Marigold (calendula), wallflowers etc
It is also possible to buy packets of mixed seeds suitable for Butterflies from The Monarch Butterfly Trust shop or from Wildflower world, which is what we did with our garden at The Village.
Butterflies in Education
An interest in butterflies can help meet many of the learning objectives in Te Whāriki, the New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum. For example:
- Wellbeing, Goal 4, respect for rules about harming others and the environment and an understanding of the reasons for such rules.
- Belonging, Goal 1, Children and their families experience an environment where connecting links with the family and the wider world are affirmed and extended.
- Belonging, Goal 2, Children develop skills in caring for the environment, such as cleaning, fixing, gardening, and helping others with self-care skills;
- Communication, Goal 3, Children experience an environment where they experience the stories and symbols of their own and other cultures.
- Children develop familiarity with print and its uses by exploring and observing the use of print in activities that have meaning and purpose for children
- Children develop familiarity with numbers and their uses by exploring and observing the use of numbers in activities that have meaning and purpose for children;
- Exploration, Goal 3, Children experience an environment where they learn strategies for active exploration, thinking, and reasoning
- Exploration, Goal 4, Children experience an environment where they develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical, and material worlds.
- Children develop spatial understandings, including an awareness of how two- and three dimensional objects can be fitted together and moved in space and ways in which spatial information can be represented, such as in maps, diagrams, photographs, and drawings;
- Children develop a relationship with the natural environment and a knowledge of their own place in the environment;
- Children develop respect and a developing sense of responsibility for the well-being of both the living and the non-living environment;
- Children developworking theories about the living world and knowledge of how to care for it;
An introduction to Butterflies in New Zealand
Butterflies are members of the order of insects known as Lepidoptera, from the Latin word "lepido" meaning scale and "ptera" meaning wing. Moths are also members of the Lepidoptera order. According to http://www.lepbarcoding.org there are about 180,000 known species of Lepidoptera and another 300,000 likely await description. New Zealand has an estimated 2000 species of Lepidoptera, of which about 20 are considered butterflies.
Generally if it is brightly coloured, flies in the daytime, rests with it's wings upright, and has club ended antennae then it is refered to as a "butterfly". If on the other hand it is a dull colour, flies at night, rests with its wings flat, and has feathery ends to its antennae then it is referred to as a moth. However some Lepidoptera possess a mixture of butterfly and moth attributes, such as the Hesperiidae (skippers) and Hedylidae (American butterfly moths).
The true Butterflies are grouped into the Papilionoidea superfamily, which is organised into five subfamilies. The Papilionidae and Riodinidae subfamilies do not have any representatives in New Zealand, and the White Butterfly is thought to have arrived in the 1930's. The Nymphalidae and Lycaenidae are found in New Zealand. What is this bug? A guide to common invertebrates of New Zealand by Landcare Research provides a sampling of these online. Endemic butterflies, or those found only in New Zealand are listed in bold. Occasional visitors are listed in italics.
For further information:
