Project SOB. save our butterflies.

FACT. Since the 70's butterfly population has been on the decline, and as 2016 70% of the UK specialise have decreased so bad you can only find them in certain areas, this is due to pesticides and other human interference with their habitats.

Today I had a long think about "what I should do with my little bit of land" I have been wanting to do something amazing with it to help our butterflies.

When I was a kid my grandmother used to take us on "nature walks" this was a fun time for me and my brother when we were kids and we used to collect all sorts of creepy crawlies in jars and take them home.

My mother was understanding and even bought me a used fish tank to keep the moths and butterflies in, I used to have all the stages of growth in this 3 foot tank and I looked after it pretty well too.

As I grew up I lost the interest and passion for the winged bugs and started to be interested in other things like girls beer and partying.

Now later in life I wanted to share with my children the experiences I had when I was growing up and last year I took them for a nature walk.

The problem was there was nothing to see, in total we saw 3 butterflies and they were far away keeping their distance from us.

And the only butterfly we saw was the green-veined white, when I was a kid growing up in the 80's I saw hundreds of different butterflies.

My favorite of them been the small tortoiseshell. which was full of colour.

When I got home I went on the interweb to find out where I could go to see the butterflies that I had seen when I was kid, to find that they are becoming less and less and this was sad news to me.

I was talking to my wife about it and she made the suggestion that we turned the little bit of land into a butterfly sanctuary to give them somewhere to go when to breed and rest.

So the project started and last year I made a small dent in the area what I would have liked to have been finished by this year.

This year I have a lot on, but I have my heart set on two things, one is to open a takeaway and the other is to finish what I started last year and have a great butterfly garden.

I reached out a bit, first there was some information that i needed, what host plants to use for the caterpillar stage and then what plants I could use for nectar.

One thing that I didn't know was different butterflies lay their eggs on different plants and this has to be to the liking of the caterpillar.

While reading about different butterflies I have also found out that most in the UK like nettles to lay their eggs on and this is a little bit difficult with how bad they spread and if this was to happen my neighbours would go nuts.

I have however bought some more buddleia and housed these in planters for my yard as I think that too could also use a bit of colour.

At the moment my garden is a bomb site, with mess everywhere and tomorrow weather permitting I will be going out and making a start on the land to hopefully bring new life to the butterfly garden.

@artonmysleeve