Making the world safer for butterflies can be as easy as doing a bit of nothing.
Letting some part of a yard go unmown can boost the number of butterflies and moths sighted there, says ecologist Richard Fox. That long-grass patch may be as elaborate as an all-native meadow dotted with flowers or as simple as some didn’t-mow corner by the back fence. Nectar-rich blooms that attract the fliers may pop up, but the biggest win comes when caterpillars don’t “get chopped in half every week by the lawn mower,” he says. “It’s not about having special grasses. It’s about resisting the urge to tidy everything.”
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