Flowers and butterflies

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Flowers and butterflies (and caterpillars) go together.
Plan your flower garden to attract butterflies and grow
a magical butterfly habitat in your own back yard.

A butterfly garden or habitat is easy to grow at home if you design and plant flowers with butterflies in mind from the start. Many flowers attract colorful butterflies with their nectar and certain plants serve as welcome food sources for the butterfly larvae or caterpillars. When you design and plant a butterfly garden or back yard butterfly habitat, it is important to provide nectar for the adults as well as larval food sources for the babies (larvae or caterpillars or some folks call them worms). You may also want to set out the butterfly welcome mat by providing special environmental features as well. Follow this guide to design a flower filled butterfly habitat garden in your back yard.

Butterflies Love these Flowers and Plants 

  

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Planting flowers en masse or in large drifts helps butterflies notice them. If you can provide flowers in bloom all season, especially native plants, this will help attract a wider range of the butterflies found in your local area. When you design your butterfly garden you might begin with a butterfly bush (Buddleia). Surround the bush with perennials such as purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), black eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), Brazilian verbena (Verbena bonariensis), daylily (Hemerocallis), catmint (Nepeta), lavender, phlox, goldenrod, ironweed (Vernonia), asters, and sedums. Plant a generous swathe of annuals including zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, sweet alyssum and cleome along with lantana. (Lantana is perennial in some areas, annual in others, and butterflies love it.)

Butterfly Larvae (Caterpillars) Eat Leaves 

 
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Butterfly larvae are voracious eaters, so be prepared for some damage to your butterfly food plants. This is normal and the plants will usually survive it. Parsley, dill and bronze fennel are wonderful food sources as are the butterfly weed and milk weed plants (both Asclepias). You may find that larvae devour your Virginia creeper vine or munch on your hollyhock leaves, but this is to be expected. If the chewed look bothers you, consider planting these in an out of the way area of the yard.