Even in the early seasons your mini wildflower meadow will attract butterflies, providing nectar in the form of wildflowers and the plant and grasses providing food for the caterpillar and larvae enabling butterflies to complete their life cycle.
Up to the 1950?s, the countryside of Great Britain, was full of wildflowers, by the roadside, in country lanes, along the hedges and in meadows. Encouraged by the chemical companies and the low prices the supermarkets were willing to pay the farmers for British farm produce, farmers ploughed up the traditional wild flower meadows to reseed them with hybrid rye grasses or arable crops removing the most important source of nectar and food, butterflies, caterpillars and larvae needed to survive. Ploughing of unfertilised meadows and the use of herbicide and fertiliser has wiped out wild flowers and the effect on butterfly populations has been disastrous. One estimate is that about 97% of flower-rich meadows have been lost over the past 50 years.
