Butterflies in Britain’s towns and cities are having a very hard time – but we gardeners and allotment holders can make a difference.
Butterfly Conservation, the University of Kent and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology published a paper last week which showed that butterflies are doing worse in towns and cities than in the countryside – numbers are down by 69% in the 20 years since 1995, compared with a 45% decline in rural areas. You can read the paper in full here.
There are many factors contributing to this:
- habitat loss as householders install paving and decking instead of lawns and borders (and local councils cut back on park maintenance)
- loss of wildlife-rich brownfield sites
- use of pesticides by gardeners
- climate change.
For butterflies to thrive, they need food plants for their caterpillars and nectar plants for the adults. Butterfly Conservation have some useful resources to help you pick the right plants:
Butterfly Conservation – food plants for butterfly caterpillars
Butterfly Conservation – nectar plants for butterflies
Butterfly Conservation – food plants for moth caterpillars
Butterfly Conservation – nectar plants for moths.
Helping butterflies means helping their caterpillars too – but a few nibbled leaves are a small price to pay for beautiful butterflies and bear in mind that caterpillars also provide food for birds (which will also eat other undesirable insects such as greenfly) and that butterflies and moths are also important pollinators. Protecting your cabbages with netting is less harmful to wildlife than using pesticides – and better for your garden, as pesticides kill beneficial insects like bees and ladybirds too.
CHAS will be continuing to provide plants for pollinator-friendly planters and Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve this year. Last year, we planted foxgloves, sweet peas, climbing nasturtiums, cirsium rivulare, lavender, poppies, scabious, cornflowers, viola and sedum. The cornflowers were particularly successful – intense blue flowers over a long period.