12 Beautiful Butterfly Designs to Shape Your Butterfly Garden
Design Ideas for a Shapely Butterfly Garden
Some have learned to deal with Ms. Nature’s weather tantrums by adding shapely butterfly designs into the garden landscape. Here are a few ideas that might inspire you to add some permanent butterflies to your garden.
1. Butterfly Chair Decor
Sometimes furniture looks out of place outside of the patio. But using butterflies or other nature inspired designs is the perfect fit to enhance your garden ambience.
Find Beautiful Metal Butterfly Chairs Here
2. White Picket Fence Decor
A mini white picket fence around your butterfly raised bed adds a bit of cottage charm to the garden. However, I’d suggest an alternate location for your bird house to avoid causing nature confrontations…and an over-fertilized garden! 😉
Find White Picket Fencing Here
3. Multi-level Butterfly Design
This miniature raised bed is a perfect annual centerpiece for small space gardening. It’s dimensions are 10′ x 10′ and depth ranges to 18″. It’s also supports trailing plants to add visual pow!
4. Cute Container Garden Idea
All you need is a pot, some paint, a cute pair of baby feet and… you’re good to grow!
5. Butterflies are for the Birds
The expanded shape (compared to traditional bird baths) might even inspire more birds to share. I’ll take the West Wing!
More Butterfly Inspired Bird Baths
6. Monarch Mailbox
This creative Monarch Mailbox was designed by community member Linda D. with some help from her husband…
How did they do it?
I took a favorite photo and drew the wings on some plywood. Then I used a jigsaw to cut them out. I used outdoor wood paint (rustoleum ) and hand painted and then my airbrush to finish the colors. The eyes were made with champagne corks and colored beads…then my husband attached them and the wings and I painted the caterpillar on the post. The antenna are painted clothes hangers.
Linda says this was a fun project and, more importantly, her mailman really likes it! 🙂
7. Butterfly Walkway
During the season, this structure could be naturally covered with climbing vines. During the winter months it could support holiday lights and other decorations. A garden-sized arbor of a similar design could be an attractive addition to your landscape.
8. Butterfly Stepping Stones
Look up at the sky, or down at your feet, in hopes that a butterfly your eyes will soon meet! (Perhaps I should walk away from Monarch Butterfly Garden and start a poetry site?)
Beautiful Butterfly Stepping Stones
9. A-MAZE-IN
I’m not sure how hard it is to keep looking like this, but it’s certainly visually appealing in this photo.
10. Better Surroundings for Irregular Raise Beds
Although there seems to be a lot of unused real estate in this raised bed, having a gravel path around it should make it easier to care for. Irregular-shaped raised beds look good in theory, but wait until you have to mow around them every week!
11. Attractive, Accessible Raised Beds
4 wings, 1 body, easy access to all plants, and a straight-edged square for your mowing convenience.
12. Portable Raised Beds
An interesting idea that requires plants with shallow root growth. However, with the right plants, this set up would be a fine addition to the garden and could be easily moved at your convenience.
The question from #9 that bears repeating: How easy is it be to keep this masterpiece in this condition?
13. Late-Summer Milkweed Pod Decor
I realize this isn’t a butterfly shaped design, but it can be created by taking the pods from this favorite butterfly garden plant. Add a few rocks to secure the glass and you’ve got a bird bath that rarely needs refilling.
I hope these ideas have inspired you to create permanent butterfly designs for your garden. Sign up for free butterfly garden tips below and I’ll also teach you how to attract real butterflies to your garden doorstep.
Hi Tony, I really enjoy your website.
I have a tip for you. You don’t need an actual baby’s feet to make baby-foot imprints like on the flowerpot above. You can create a similar effect with your bare hands. My mother taught me how to do it when I was a little girl. Here’s how: Make a fist and dip the pinky side of your hand into the paint. Press the paint-covered side of your fist onto the surface you want to paint. Next, dip the tip of your index finger into the paint and use it to paint five dots above your fist print for the baby’s toes. Voila! Instant baby footprints!
thank you for the crafty tip Mary!
Tony i LOVE your web site. I live In Scottsdale Arizona and yes it is a dry heat. nov. 14 2016 i still have monarchs flying around. only time i get to see them is end if september untill november. I thought they would of flown to their overwintering site by now.
Hi Debbie, I think unseasonably warm temps across the northern US have slowed down the migration this fall…enjoy your November butterflies!
been thinking of putting in a butterfly garden, yours is really really gorgeous.
thank you Bernice, the only photo from our actual garden is the raised beds. The others were meant to give you and others ideas for your gardens…good luck!
I would like to get butterfly chairs and I like the peacock too. Where can I find them?
Hi Katherine, I am not sure if the original butterfly chairs are still available, but I did link to some similar metal butterfly chair decor under #1.
Love the ideas! I’d like to purchase #3 the multi-level butterfly design. Do you have any idea where it can be purchased? Thank you!
Hi Lisa, I checked the link to see if I could find the source but it doesn’t look like it’s available anymore. An alternative idea would be to find some miniature white picket fencing to create #2.
Tony,
Really liked the 12 butterfly shaped things. My daughter Leah had a butterfly shaped garden for her 3rd grade year of 4H and it is still here but it is dad’s garden now. Added some violets to see if I could attract and feed Great Fritillary larvae. In another garden I have some swamp milkweed and whorled milkweed plants and the butterfly weed are emerging. The prairie milkweed that I wanted to overwinter didn’t. Have about a dozen tropical milkweed to set out and 2 seedlings of purple milkweed and one of antelope horn milkweed that I will have to tenderly tend to. The milkweed parrots were are also darling. Brian
Hi Brian, glad to hear you are continuing the tradition of your daughter’s garden. Question…why were you trying to overwinter prairie milkweed? It’s cold hardy to zone 4.
Tony,
I had planted the prairie milkweed outdoors and it did not overwinter. I was so disappointed. Seeing some cabbage whites but they just aren’t anything like a monarch or a great spangled fritillary.
could it be a late-starting milkweed Brian? I just noticed my first butterfly weed coming up today and my swamp hasn’t started coming up yet. It’s too early to give up on your milkweed at this point…especially considering it’s been a cooler spring.