If you build it, they will come…the butterflies, that is. One of the best ways to encourage butterflies to your garden is to grow the food to attract adults with nectar-rich flowers and sustain them with host plants so they will stay and lay their eggs.
Adult butterflies like to land to sip. Umbrella shaped plants make a nice landing pad to suit their needs. Pansies, Zinnia, marigold, Joe Pye weed, coneflowers, sedum, black-eyed susans, Lantana are some of the kinds of plants adult butterflies like.
If your garden also have specific plants to host butterfly larvae, not only will you attract butterflies to your garden, you will also sustain them for much longer. While butterflies are attracted to the nectar-rich plants, once there, they will look around for their specific host food.
If you want monarchs, plant milkweed; the only host plant for the monarch butterfly. If you want Spicebush swallowtail, plant a Spicebush; if you want Zebras, plant a Pawpaw. Fennel, Dill, and parsley are hosts to many eastern swallowtails.
Open your garden to the magic of butterflies….if you build it, they will come.
Helen Yoest is a garden writer and coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™
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Helen also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum
I plant Lantana every Spring just for the butterflies, and boy do they love it!! (and we enjoy having the butterflies)
Oh yes Greta, Lantana is a butterfly magnet. We are lucky to have some varieties of Lantana hardy here.