Raising Butterflies and Moths in the Garden

This book is what I have been searching for. It has so much detailed information in such an easy to read and understand format. From life cycle with pictures to host plants and geographic info and much more. It is the best book I have found for id of cats in all stages! (I live in Central OK and almost all information was applicable ) I am so pleased with this book. I have so many moth and butterfly books that fall so short when it comes to ID ing in all life stages.This is truly a complete list of the Butterflies and pollinators I am trying to support and draw into my garden. Thank you for creating a beautiful book that provides the information for attracting butterflies all the way through all stages of rasing catapillars.This book checks all the boxes for anyone wanting to draw, grow and support Butterflies and Pollinators!! I am buying more copies to share!

Nicely made and informative book. High quality paper for the pages.

The book is very nice. Has beautiful photos and easy to understand the information written about everything butterfly and moths.

I've never found a more thorough book covering the life stages (including multiple caterpillar instars, which can be critical as morphology can change at different stages) and preferred plants of several butterfly and moth species.My only gripe with this book (if you can call it that) is that I wish it covered more species.A must-have for any gardener/bug enthusiast!

The book has been so helpful on my knowledge of butterflies and moths!

User friendlyEasy to flip throughSimple book

This is especially helpful in Butterfly identification.

The title of this book is misleading. Subtracting photos, there are 2.5 pages of text about gardening for moths and butterflies, and 1 page of text on raising the larvae. And that is it! The target audience is considered minimally literate as the vocabulary and information is at a pre-collegiate level. Having only had one high school biology class and one general college biology class, I expected to learn something from this book but I have yet to find anything enlightening.Most of the book is filled with photos and text about particular species that occur at the author's home in Minnesota and the East US in general. The photos of the larval and pupal stages are practical if one doesn't mind being perpetually disappointed that the larva one found in the garden isn't in the book. They are nice photos, but most photos of the eggs could be omitted as most people wouldn't be able to use them to identify species anyway. Some plant photos, insect photos, and text are unnecessarily repeated (for example, page 230 is essentially a copy/paste of page 152). Some species range maps are off as the author doesn't distinguish windblown flight strays from breeding locations (delicate, subtropical Zebra Heliconians breeding natively at 6000' in frigid, windy SE Wyoming? I think not!). All of the useful information could be gleaned from simple web searches if one wanted to know about attracting a few species local to one's home.No information is provided about keystone plant species: those species which host a large number of butterflies and moths in particular regions. For example, near my home the keystone species include Ceanothus cuneatus (Buckbrush), Salix lasiolepis (Narrowleaf Willow), and Eriogonum umbellatum (Sulphur Buckwheat), but *only* if you live several miles inland from my location. The keystone species are different at my coastal home, and the environmental differences would prevent the inland species from venturing here or being raised here. Similar differences in useful species occur due to changes in elevation, temperature, rainfall, or wind in most regions. Most folks wanting to attract breeding insects would do well to plant keystone species specific to their immediate surroundings.There is also no information about developing a garden with Lepidoptera-supporting plants. Many of these plants have radically different requirements in terms of soil acidity, nutrient mix, water requirements and more. Nor are there any suggestions about garden design: how to mix larval foodplants with the flowering plants that adults will need to nectar upon in reasonable proximity. Or how to ensure that the choice of plants will allow flowers to blossom when they're needed across the spring and summer to support the appropriate local species desired. Or whether nectaring plants need to be wind-sheltered. Butterflies often are choosey about what they will nectar on--while the author delineates some species of flowers which her selected butterflies enjoy, one cannot determine whether those are native to one's location from her text.There is no information about choosing human foodplants that double as butterfly rearing plants. Cabbage, for example, supports Cabbage Whites. Stinging nettles (a common keystone plant) are an excellent food source if one doesn't mind the minor challenge of handling them, and they support several brush-footed butterflies. Most folks would like a garden which looks nice and/or provides sustenance. The author's solution is mainly to grab hordes of random potential butterfly trees and shrubs and place them in plastic pots around her property. Then when cold weather hits to move them someplace warmer. Ugh!The book lacks important information about invasive species. Some plants recommended by the author could be invasive species if brought to random American yards indiscriminately. It is important to use species local to your home as otherwise they might be rejected as hostplants by butterflies and could potentially supplant critical native species beyond the boundaries of your yard. Even with species that are local, it is important to take care that the varietals planted aren't introducing genes that could negatively impact local plants.The sad thing about this book is it could have been so much more with a little thought, research, and preparation. The process for developing a real butterfly garden is much more thought-provoking and fun than the author appears to understand. From consultation with local experts about available butterflies near one's home, to choosing the mix of uses for the property, to selecting an appropriate mix of plants, and to then building an attractive and navigable layout for the garden, building a butterfly garden should be a joy. Firefly has managed to publish a book that sucks all the life out of the gardening journey and instead transforms a gardener into an inveterate potted-plant schlepper. I would have much preferred a guide to the gardening process along with case studies from different regions of the country.I also would have preferred a book that wasn't filled with so many silly errors that I could find in the first thirty minutes. Alas, quality editors and proofreaders are a dying breed! Firefly deserves a dishonorable mention here as the results are worse than many self-published books.Not recommended.