ANN ARBOR—While the wind blows and the fire burns brightly, settle back in a comfortable chair and start planning next season’s garden.

While seed and plant catalogs provide pictures of glorious blooms, seldom do they answer all the gardener’s needs. The University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens maintains a Website that offers specific advice for creating a wildlife sanctuary in the backyard and establishing a butterfly garden in Michigan. The Website also directs gardeners to numerous other pertinent gardening sites. The Matthaei site at www.lsa.umich.edu/mbg/gardenforum/butterfly.html provides gardening tips on how to plant a butterfly-friendly garden.

Among the information are tips on what plants attract and provide food for the caterpillars that will become the butterflies. There are tips on butterfly viewing, lists of favorite butterfly flowers and references to a variety of books on the subject of butterflies and butterfly gardens. To create a wildlife sanctuary in your own backyard requires the necessities—water, food and shelter.

At www.lsa.umich.edu/mbg/gardenforum/wildlifesanctuary.html one can find tips on providing these necessities as well as what plants to include and what plants to avoid. By using native shrubs, trees and perennials, the botanical gardens says, you can “conserve and promote the aesthetics and health of southeastern Michigan plant communities.” The Matthaei Website also has links to other sites where gardeners can find information ranging from horticulture sites around the world and a calendar of garden events to sites specific to bamboo, carnivorous plants, daylilies and water gardens.

Visit www.lsa.umich.edu/mbg/resources/sites4plants.htm for information on a variety of gardening skills and issues. For the Matthaei Botanical Gardens home page, see www.lsa.umich.edu/mbg/

www.lsa.umich.edu/mbg/gardenforum/butterfly.html

www.lsa.umich.edu/mbg/resources/sites4plants.htm

www.lsa.umich.edu/mbg/

mjnesbit@umich.edu