Mowing a butterfly meadow

Willem

I have a question about mowing the plants on my butterfly meadow. At my home here in the Netherlands I turned a large part of my garden into a butterfly meadow full of, and only consisting of, indigenous plants and herbs that would naturally grow here. There are about 30 to 50 species of host plants in my garden at the moment. In the recent weeks I regularly saw different caterpillars walking on my garden path. The species I have seen crawling so far is:

-Alsophila aescularia

-Deilephila elpenor

-Orgyia antiqua

And a few others. I read that you can see them mostly when they are ready to pupae and are in search for a good spot. But now I am a little worried that, when I'm going to mow the meadow end of summer beginning of autumn, I might hurt hibernating pupae. Do they spin a cocoon on the host plant or do they choose other spots?

If I manually have to check the entire meadow for hibernating butterflies and moths it will be a heck of a job.

Doe anybody know how (most) indigenous Dutch species develop and if it would be safe to mow? I have to remove the clippings afterwards to guarantee soil impoverishment.

Merlin

Hello Willem,

moving a meadow can be a problem for butterfly caterpillars. Many pupae and caterpillars hibernate low or on the ground. There are some exeptions, such as Maniola jurtina which hibernates quite high and exposed.

So, a common advice is moving as late and as high as possible. E.g. in September 10 cm. And you may spare some space, or mow on rotation, i.e. leaving parts of the meadow uncut on alternate years.

Leaving part of the meadow uncut or with high turf will not fit for sun loving butterflies and pioners like Lycaena or Issoria. These species prefer short turf or even some bare ground year round.

You may find a compromise or use more than one management approach, given enough space is available.

SG

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