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Butterfly garden

Butterfly garden plants

Butterfly gardens are very popular because they attract an assortment of butterflies. The key to attracting butterflies is to provide them with plants where they can lay their eggs and feed on the nectar. If you would like to attract these elusive visitors to your garden here is a list of plants you can grow.

Plants for nectar:
Anise Hyssop (Agastache)
Aster spp.
Azalea (Rhododendron spp.)
Bee Balm (Monarda)
Butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii) *
Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)*
Cardinal Flower (Lobelia)
Cosmos
Dianthus, pinks, sweet william
Egyptian star flower (Pentas)
Fernleaf yarrow (Achillea filipendulina)
Foxglove (Digitalis)
Garden phlox (Phlox paniculata)
Heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens)
Honeysuckle vine (Lonicera)
Hybrid delphinium (Delphinium spp.)
Lantana (Lantana camara)
Lavender (Lavendula)
Marigold
Orange, lemon,lime (Citrus spp.)
Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
Queen Ann”s Lace (Daucus carota)
Rudbeckia , gloriosa daisy
Sedum (Hylotelephium spectabile)
Snapdragon (Antirrhinum)
Spike gayfeather (Liatris spicata)
Summersweet (Clethra alnifolia)
Tickseed (Coreoposis lanceolata)
Verbena
Yarrow
Zinnia

Plants for Larval Food
Black Cherry
Carrot
Clover
Dill
Elm
Fennel
Flowering crabapple
Hollyhock mallow (Malva alcea)
Milkweed (Asclepias)
Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)
Passion flower (Passiflora spp.)
Rose
Salvia
Spice bush (Lindera benzoin)
Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipfera)
Turtlehead (Chelone lyonii)
Violet, Pansy
Willow (Salix spp.)
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

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February 5th, 2007 | Category: Butterfly garden, Garden Review, PERENNIALS | 8 comments

8 comments to Butterfly garden

• Joann G

  March 23rd, 2007 at 9:56 am · Reply

  I planted 12 Liatris bulbs this spring. Only two matured enough (very tall – height to about 30″) and bloomed. The other 10 grew to a height of about five inches and did not bloom. They are all in the same area. What happened?

  Storage and size can affect the growth rate of each individual corm. Perhaps you had a mix of quality. Sometimes it takes more than a year for Liatris to get mature enough to bloom. Wait till next year. they are great for attracting butterflies.

• lori

  October 9th, 2007 at 7:16 am · Reply

  I have 2 mini sunflower plants in my flower bed and the blooms seem to dying off and new ones are about to open. Do I need to remove the dead heads?

  Mini sunflowers don’t produce much of a seed head and that would be the only reason to keep it, so I would remove the dead flower to encourage the new ones to open. Allowing a flower to mature to produce a seed head takes a lot of energy from the plant, by removing it you stimulate the plant to produce more flowers and prolong their bloom time.

• Sarah

  November 7th, 2007 at 2:47 pm · Reply

  Do you cut back Purple Coneflower in the fall for winter protection? If so, how? Any other tips for winterizing Purple Coneflower?

  There are two ways to approach wintering perennials: Purple coneflower can be left as is. The seed heads will feed the birds during the winter. It will also disperse seeds and can produce more seedlings next year which may or may not be a good thing. The other way is to cut down the stems leaving up to 6 inches of the stem. The remaining stem stubs will catch loose leaves and snow which will add some insulation and protection from extreme cold. Purple coneflower is very hardy and should easily survive the winter cold.

• Bridgette Trent

  April 11th, 2008 at 1:55 pm · Reply

  I have Sweetwilliams from seeds there are 2 Years old and have nice leaves but no flowers and there are in a container, what can I do? Thanks very much……

  Sweet william are biennials that sometimes act like short-lived perennials. They come back for a year or so but do not perform well, either the plant gets sparse, untidy looking and has very little or no flowers. On the other hand, a biennial produces green growth the first year and then blooms the second year. If your original plant died after blooming but reseeded itself, then you have a 1st year plant again which should bloom next year. Another option is: that the plants may be vigorously growing leaves and producing no flowers due to too much nitrogen fertilizer.

  pic: Butterfly garden

• tereysha

  September 2nd, 2008 at 9:05 am · Reply

  hi my class is going to start to do a court yard and we get to design it i was wondering if you have any thing that we might need to do so the flowers will stay alive for a long time we are doing an, asian and butterfly theme to it . i need to now what are the things that i need so we can do it right because i want it to look nice for the spring

  Hi Tereysha
  There are certain plants that you can plant that will attract butterflies. Shrubs such as Butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii), Azalea, lilac and
  perennial butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)bee balm (Monarda didyma), lantana and phlox will bloom during the summer and will attract butterflies. An addition of annual flowers and vines (passion flower)will keep your courtyard in bloom all summer long. See the list above for plant suggestions. You need to research the plants to make sure that they get enough sun, moisture and are hardy enough to grow in your area.

• Lisa

  October 28th, 2008 at 11:25 am · Reply

  I grew Snapdragons for the first time this summer. Now that fall has come and I am cleaning up the flower beds I noticed the snapdragons have a bulb like root. My question is can this root be saved for the winter and replanted next summer and if so how do I store it?

• muhammad khabbab

  July 8th, 2009 at 3:52 am · Reply

  Will echinacea purpuea (purple cone flower) will survive our summer heat of over 100F. I intend to grow it from seed and in a clay pot.

  Khabbab (zone 10b)
  Lahore, Pakistan

• muhammad khabbab

  July 8th, 2009 at 3:54 am · Reply

  same is the question about gaillardia aristata(blanket flower) and scabiosa columbaria/caucasia (pincushion flower)

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