I Planted a DIY Butterfly Garden: Here’s How

When I moved into my house in Burnaby in 2020, I inherited an unkempt yard from the previous tenants. It was a sprawling quarter-acre of land that was equal parts grass, weeds and clover (an attempt to make the yard low-maintenance, I’d guessed). The perimeter of the yard was—and still is—boxed in by blackberry brambles and an ever-expanding mini-forest of bamboo.

“It’s…bio-diverse,” my teenage niece joked at the mish-mash of over-growing plants. It was clear I had a lot of work to do—but a landscaper I am not. (If anyone reading this is a landscaper and would like to sponsor my backyard revival, feel free to get in touch.)

My niece wasn’t wrong in her assessment. I soon surmised there was a hive nearby, as big, fluffy bumblebees and the occasional butterfly would dip in and out of the yard. It was certainly the mark of an area ripe with the right amount of flora and foliage to sustain worker bees and pretty returning butterflies. So when I found a charming stump in the back corner of the yard, I knew it was the ideal spot for a butterfly garden.

I weeded around the stump, raked out the existing soil and planted some roses and bulbs. Alas, it lasted one summer.

This year, I decided to revive the garden after a four-year hiatus, with the help of my four-year-old daughter. Here’s how I did it.

Pick a spot that gets at least six hours of direct sun

As I mentioned before, the stump was the canvas I chose in the corner of the yard. The sun reaches and casts shadows in plenty of areas in my yard, but the stump is in direct sunlight for most of the day. This is essential for growing the types of flowers in a butterfly garden.

Commit to the right garden tools

I purchased a beginner kit from Fiskars a few years back, which includes a hand trowel for digging holes and transplanting seedlings; pruning shears for trimming branches, stems and, in my case, brambles; and a garden fork for digging, plus turning up, raking and aerating the soil. This year, I stepped things up a notch with a full-sized garden spade to be able to dig down and find the roots of weeds, plus blast through any brambles crawling over the stump’s roots. I also used a garden rake to pull up soil and pull out the roots of weeds. The rake also helps in the final step of levelling out the mounds of fresh soil.

Read More: 7 Garden Gear Finds Worth Shopping in 2026

 

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Pick out your favourite bee and butterfly bulbs and seeds

I love colour, and luckily so do bees and butterflies. So, when I found a bag of bulbs for Asiatic lilies at Costco ($20), I was sold. Adult butterflies need nectar-rich, flowering plants throughout the season, and Asiatic lilies are hearty, large and colourful enough to attract butterflies from a distance. The bag also claimed to attract hummingbirds.

An easy way to make the garden flourish apart from eight single bulbs, I thought, was to scatter wildflower seeds in the garden. I purchased the West Coast Seeds Butterfly Blend ($32.49 for 125 grams) made of 50 percent annual and 50 percent perennial wildflower seeds, including black-eyed susans, butterfly milkweed, California poppies and prairie coneflower.

 

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Pick the right soil

I want my bulbs to grow large, fast and hearty. I’m not knowledgeable enough yet about gardening, so I picked what I thought would be the safest (most abundant) choice—an all-purpose garden soil from Miracle-Gro. I planted the bulbs in the soil and then covered them up with just blooming stems sticking out, then wet the soil all over, delicately. I sprinkled the Butterfly Blend of seeds over everything, wet it again, and sprinkled another shallow layer of soil over it. The next day, I shook out a small amount of potting soil to top the garden, in order to control humidity and prevent water pooling.

Mark the perimeter

Since I have an overgrowth of bamboo in the yard that constantly needs to be trimmed back, I cut dried, empty stems of bamboo we’d harvested the year before and made a “fence” around the garden. I aim to use this to aerate the soil around the garden, while also serving as a post to stack river rocks against. Once the stones settle and the weeds are blunted against the garden, I’ll remove the bamboo and let the rocks stand on their own.

Wait for the butterfly garden to bloom

And now I wait for the wildflower seeds to sprout, while the Asiatic bulbs are already crawling out of the garden.