Location, location, location!

14 years ago

Back in the beginning of the summer, I put in a Butterfly Pool. For the pool I used a discarded and slightly cracked concrete fountain base that measures 30" across and 4" deep. The sucker is heavy, especially to someone with chronic back pain. So I used fiberglass resin to fill in the cracks as well as the drain and fountain holes, poured a couple bags of playground sand in, mounded the sand to the center and filled with water. To my eye, it was the perfect sandy beach island in the middle of a ring of water. Especially since it was situated just at the base of my Passionvine trellis on the north side and on the west side of my house. Heck, if I were a butterfly, I would love to sit in the shade and sip the water while enjoying the view and scent of the passionflowers. Especially if I were a Gulf Fritillary or Zebra Longwing!.

Well, apparently I don't know the minds of butterflies. All through the summer the only signs I saw of activity at the pool were mosquito larvae and one time I found a trail in the sand where a snake had paid a visit.

So now that temps are cooling a bit I am doing some of the more intensive work in the yard, moving plants that I had errantly planted on the north side of my house back in the spring, repairing planter boxes and... moving the butterfly pool, which I did yesterday. I didn't move it very far, only about 6 ft northwest of where it sat all summer (remember, it's HEAVY). So a little bit further from the trellis and house. It now sits in the sun more, even with the lengthening shadows. This morning while working on the planter boxes I stopped by the pool at one point and noticed the prints of bird feet in the sand as well as the dirt around the pool. An hour later, I'm moving dirt from one of the planter boxes to a low spot near the pool and I look over to see a Gulf Fritillary sitting in the sand taking a sip! Who would have thunk that moving a pool as little as six feet would make such a difference in activity! I can only guess that the butterflies use the shimmer of sun on the water to locate their drinking sources and by having the pool sitting in shade for so much of the day, I had made it very difficult for the butterflies to locate it.

Anyways, I just thought I would pass along this experience in case anyone else is thinking of putting in a butterfly pool and is thinking of putting it in a shady spot.

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Comments (3)

thetradition
14 years ago
I had no idea that butterflies were attracted to backyard ponds.

When I was a kid, bees made a hive under a bench built into in a sandbox that my dad constructed for me. Maybe that's what I need to attract bees?
Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
Original Author
14 years ago
It's not so much the pond as the wet sand. Butterflies won't drink from standing water, but rather they land on wet soil and drink from the dirt. So by mounding the sand in the pool, I make a permanently moist beach as the sand will wick the water up at least 2 inches above the water level, possibly more, but I haven't mounded the sand up any higher than that. If you have a patch of open dirt in your yard, like around a citrus tree, spray it down on a nice sunny day and wait about 30 minutes. Over the summer I was always greeted by a veritable carpet of Sulphur and and Hairstreak (I believe) butterflies after watering my citrus trees. Which always annoyed me a bit since the pool was, at the time, about 12 feet from my Persian Lime that they would drink at.

As far as bees go, the only thing that I have seen in my yard that will attract bees is my white-colored pentas. For most of the summer there were so many bees and wasps on those pentas that no butterflies would visit them. But I haven't seen the bees since the last Love Bug invasion and since then the Gulf Frits have been visiting those plants more frequently. Having said that, I'm more of a foliage person and so I don't have a lot of flowering plants yet. The white pentas are the only flowers I have on the west side of my house and I only have lavendar and white Trailing Lantanas on the east side. But that will hopefully be changing next spring as I set about building a wildflower bed (Yay! Even LESS grass to mow!). I also have cuttings from Purple, Pink and Red Pentas rooting, so those will be planted next spring as well.
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RetiredFlorida
14 years ago
Funny you should mention that. I was kindly given a bunch of canna a few months back, which I had potted and divided, ending up with close to 18 nice pots of canna, red and yellow. They were all looking healthy sitting in pots next to my driveway on a strip of grass and then the leaf rollers attacked. I started picking them off the plants once I noticed how bad they were and what they were. I sprayed the plants with soap/water mix and yet they still seemed to do damage.

I cut all the plants back, removed the leaves to the trash and sprayed the pots again. I then moved the pots onto my driveway about 10 feet away. Plants are looking healthy and the rollers have not returned! Now as soon as I put these in the ground, I bet I have problems......but til then.

Darren