Not sure if Butterfly Wrangler Liz Cannedy meant to make that pun when she gave me the details about her free Butterfly Gardening Workshop at 10 a.m. Saturday in Austin, but there it is:

"I'm kind of winging it," she told me.

I am guessing she used the term intentionally, knowing her. At any rate, if you are out and about in the Austin area this Saturday morning, May 28, and want excellent information about butterfly gardening, it's worth a trip to Snooper's Nursery, 3602 Kiphen Road. Liz used to manage the Butterfly Haus at Fredericksburg's Wildseed Farms, and although she does not like to be called an "expert," because the word carries so much responsibility, she is an encyclopedia of information. She plans to show bordered patch caterpillars and their host plant, the sunflower. She also may have some pipevines.

The biggest question she will be answering is the one that visitors to Wildseed's butterfly garden used to ask workers most often as they strolled through the magical environment of lush plants and hundreds of colorful butterflies: "How do I attract caterpillars and butterflies to my garden?"

The quick answer is that you grow the right plants for the butterflies to lay eggs on — plants that you don't mind getting stripped, because that's what caterpillars do — and the right plants for butterflies to feed on. Often these plants,  known as host plants and nectar plants, are different. Occasionally they are the same. For example, the monarch both nectars and lays her eggs on the milkweed plant. But butterflies like lots of different plants for nectar — blue mist flower comes to mind — and will even feed on rotten bananas and sap from trees. They are much pickier when it comes to the plants they will lay their eggs on, because once the eggs hatch, the caterpillars will eat this host plant to survive.

So take your questions and take notes to the 10 a.m. Saturday workshop, because this is a rare opportunity. Liz has been successfully raising caterpillars and butterflies since her son was a young child, and he is all grown up now. And ask her what her next step is in raising butterflies. She has big plans.