About Butterfly

Butterflies bring colour and movement to wildlife gardens as they pollinate plants in their search for nectar. Unfortunately, loss of habitat threatens almost half of Victoria's 120 butterfly species. Wildlife gardens offer them food and refuge.

In order to attract butterflies it is important to provide food for both adults and caterpillars. Native daisies, grasses, lomandras, sedges, acacias, goodenias and eucalypts are all suitable.

Butterflies feed in open, sunny locations that feature a variety of flowering shrubs, grasses, trees and groundcovers. Because different butterflies feed on different plants growing at varying heights, a butterfly garden can include rockeries, mounds and raised beds.

A butterfly garden provides an attractive floral landscape of yellow, purple, red and white that blossoms during the warmer months of the year. A spectacular cottage garden can be developed using a range of indigenous plants.

Butterflies in Knox

The butterfly changes dramatically in the first eight weeks of its life. These changes from one stage to the next are known as metamorphosis. After mating the female lays her eggs somewhere that will provide a food source for the caterpillars to eat when they hatch, like on a leaf or grass. When the caterpillar is out of the egg it is always searching for food. It grows larger every day and the skin becomes very tight. Eventually the caterpillar sheds its skin, this happens several times in the first few days. 4 weeks- the caterpillar is fully grown and its body shape begins to change. It finds a safe place to hide from predators and spins a skin around itself. 7 weeks- the skin splits and the butterfly emerges. The wings dry and harden in the sunshine; the butterfly is now ready to fly. 8 weeks- the butterfly is fully grown and flys from parks to gardens to drink nectar from flowers with its long tongue.

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