Butterfly Plants

It's easy when you select a few specific plants for your garden beds that butterflies simply can't resist.

And by understanding what butterflies are looking for, you'll know just which butterfly plants to add.

Butterflies look not only for food and water, but also for places to hatch their eggs in safety, and protection from the wind.

The plants you select should provide all of these elements in order to draw and maintain a butterfly population in your backyard.

What Butterflies Seek

Butterflies are drawn to purple, orange and yellow flowers that have heavy fragrances.

Be selective and choose heirloom varieties of plants, since many new hybrid varieties have been bred for size and color and do not have the scent.

Plants with leaves and flowers that butterflies can land on, like aster (aster), black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta) and coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) are preferred over spikes of flowers.

Shady areas are avoided by butterflies, and many varieties of favorite butterfly plants do well in full sun.

To provide a place for butterfly to lay their eggs, select plants where caterpillars can hatch and feed.

Favorite caterpillar plants are parsley (Petroselinum crispum), hollyhock (Alcea), dill (Anethum) and red clover (Trifolium pretense). Young moths prefer lavender (Lavandula), zinnia (Zinnia elegans) and four o-clocks (Miravilis jalapa) for feeding.

By providing a selection for each need, you will have butterflies that don’t just visit, but stay and populate your garden with their next generation.

Butterfly Plants to Select

They are available with white, purple, pink and red-purple, with one variety available in yellow-orange.

It is a perennial that is semi-evergreen but may die back in harsh winters.

Provide full sun and regular watering to keep it blooming, and prune it back to 36" or less each year in early spring to encourage new growth.

Night-blooming jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum) is another shrub that can grow to 12 feet in height.

This plant will tolerate partial shade and needs regular watering and occasional fertilizing. It bears white flowers and poisonous berries.

Another shrub that is a favorite butterfly plant is verbena. It is smaller, only growing to about 5 feet, but can grow to 8 feet in width.

It is evergreen in warm climates, but treat it as an annual otherwise. Its flowers are striking in two colors combined, either orange and yellow or magenta and yellow.

Its black berries are also poisonous if ingested. It prefers a sunny location and lots of water during summer's heat.

In addition to shrubs, there are several flowering plants you can add to attract butterflies.

Bee balm (Monarda didyma), butterfly weed (Asclepia tuberose), lilac (Syringa) and yarrow (achillea) are favorites to provide for a butterfly's needs.

By adding an assortment of butterfly plants that provide the elements needed, you can attract and keep them in your garden.

Maintenance

Proper butterfly bush pruning is very important to ensure continuous blooming of your butterfly bushes for many years.

There are few variety of buddleia and pruning buddleia apropriate to the variety will result to healthy plants and continuos enjoyment of their beautiful flowers.