"P&K" wrote in message
om...
I am interested in landscaping the pool area of my south
Florida home
with plants that will attract butterflies. I'm familiar with
some of
the plants I can use but need help with designing the garden.
Are
there any newsgroups, books or persons who can assist me in
this
endeavor? P&K

Hie thyself down to your County Agricultural Extension Office
(you can find them under county government in the BLUE pages of
your phone book). They will have chapter-and-verse about b'fly
gardening in your area. Your neighborhood Borders or B & N
bookstore also will have a book whose title I THINK is "Butterfly
Gardening in Florida." There may be books on b'fly gardening in
SOUTH Florida, but since I don't live down there I don't know
them.

Remember that to have a successful butterfly garden you also have
to grow the plants that the caterpillars like to eat. Often
these aren't as attractive as the ones the butterflies themselves
like. So, you will have 2 gardens quite close to one another.
Most host plants like full sun (maybe part shade down there ????)

The book will list food plants as well as nectar plants. Nectar
plants include Buddleia, Aster, Globe thistle, black-eyed susan,
coneflowers, phlox, lantana (especially good in Florida!),
butterfly weed/milkweed (Asclepias).

Food plants include blueberry, aster, various citrus (if you have
any left down there), clover, dogwood, false indigo, various
vetches, marigold, Parsley, queen ann's lace, and more.

Do a google on "butterfly garden" and you will find help -- maybe
not for S. Fla . . .

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.