One of my favorite parts of the Bronx Zoo experience was the Butterfly Garden. Located almost exactly in the center of the zoo, it combines an outdoor butterfly garden with an indoor butterfly house where you can hunt for more than 40 different types of butterflies!
Admission to the Butterfly Garden is included in your POP Pass, or can be purchased for $3. As you walk through the outdoor part of the garden, mini-exhibits teach about the life cycles of different butterflies. But the best souvenir of the Butterfly Garden is the guide they give you.
On the inside of the guide you’ll find pictures of all the butterflies who reside in the butterfly house, plus common and Latin names and where in the country you can find them in the wild. I had no idea that butterflies came in so many amazing colors! Oranges, yellows, greens, tan and brown, black, and even blues! The flip side of the guide has tips for creating your own butterfly garden, including what to plant to attract certain types of butterflies and caterpillars.
I could have easily spent hours in the butterfly house, trying to find all the different butterflies. I did manage to see a Julia, a Queen, a Monarch, a Zebra Longwing, and the coolest butterfly of the day, the Comma. The Comma has bright orange markings on the top of its wings, but the underside looks like a crumpled, dry, brown leaf. When its wings are closed, you wouldn’t know it’s a butterfly at all!
As you leave the butterfly house to go back to the outdoor garden, you pass a mirror — just to make sure a butterfly isn’t trying to hitch a ride on your clothes or in your hair. I personally would have been thrilled if a butterfly had landed on me!
Some tips for creating your own butterfly garden, courtesy of the Bronx Zoo:
- Plant native flowers and plants. Don’t rule out wildflowers and weeds — they will help attract local butterflies. Wild geranium, lilac, mint, and milkweed are butterfly favorites.
- Don’t forget about caterpillars — today’s caterpillars are tomorrow’s butterflies. They like to munch on willow and elm bark, violets, beans, carrots, clover, and milkweed.
- Go easy on the pesticides; they kill all bugs in your garden, even the good ones.
- Combine sun and shade. Butterflies use the sun to help regulate their body temperature, and need shady spots for cooling off.
- Offer a water cooler. Male butterflies tend to gather around shallow water like puddles. Give them a permanent puddle so they can hang out and gossip.