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Butterfly gardening has become very popular, and is currently a fad.
It is important to realize that there are two different kinds of butterfly gardens: a butterfly flower garden for nectaring adults, and a butterfly hostplant garden of plants that are hostplants for butterfly caterpillars.
A butterfly flower garden has lots of flowers whose blooms attract butterflies,
but the reader has to be aware that the butterflies attracted are those that
just happen to fly about the neighborhood and are passing by, and may stop to
feed on your garden flowers, then the butterfly will fly away to somebody else's
yard. A butterfly hostplant garden consists of plants that are hostplants of
local butterflies, and again the butterflies that will be attracted are only
those that are present in the neighborhood, so if a female wanders into your
yard when she is ready to oviposit she may lay egg(s) on your plants, and the
caterpillars may grow to maturity, pupate, and the adults will emerge, but then
the young adults will spend at most little time in your yard, perhaps feeding on
your flowers, before flying away to somebody else's yard. As long as the reader
understands these limitations of butterfly gardens, an enjoyable garden may be
constructed.
Butterfly Flower Garden
One of the best ways to find what flowers attract
butterflies and grow in your area, is just to wander about the neighborhood and
check out the flowers other people grow that attract butterflies, then plant
these flowers (maybe they'll even give you hints on growing them). Listed below
are flowers that are popular. Of course different butterflies have different
preferences, and butterflies with a long proboscis often visit long flowers
whereas butterflies with a short proboscis only visit the flowers with a short
flower tube.
The fantastically popular flowers are these: Blazing Star or Gayfeather (Liatris),
Butterfly Bush (Buddleja davidii), Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa), Dogbane
(Apocynum sp.) but not cultivated, Goldenrod (Solidago), Lantana, other
Milkweeds (Asclepias sp.), Pickerel Weed (Pontederia, a great water plant if you
have a pond or ditch and live in the south), Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum
salicaria, considered a weed in eastern U.S.), Shepherd's Needle/Tickseed (Bidens),
Purple Bee Balm (Monarda), Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa). Also, all the
thistles including true thistle (Cirsium), Musk Thistle (Carduus), Milk Thistle
(Silybum), and Scotch Thistle (Onopordum) are terrific flowers for butterflies,
even though most are classified as weeds; the species with rhizomes (Cirsium
canadensis, incanum) spread as weeds and are difficult to eradicate, but are
manageable in a home garden.
Fairly popular flowers are these: Alfalfa, Aster, Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia),
Blackberry, Buckeye, Catnip, Ceanothus, Chrysanthemum, Clover (Trifolium),
Coneflower (Rudbeckia), Cosmos, Dandelion (Taraxacum), Dogwood, Fleabane
(Erigeron), Gaillardia, Germander, Golden-Aster (Chrysopsis), Hawthorn, Ironweed
(Vernonia), Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium), Lilac (Syringa), Marigold (Tagetes), Mint
(Mentha), Passion Flower, Peppermint (Mentha piperita), Plum/Cherry (Prunus),
Prickly Pear, Privet (Ligustrum), Purple Coneflower (Echinacea), Pussy Willow,
Ragwort (Senecio), Rocket (Hesperis matronalis), Scabiosa "Blue Butterfly"
(attracts swallowtails), Self-Heal (Prunella vulgaris), Sunflower-like flowers
such as Shasta Daisy (though true sunflower Helianthus is not very popular),
Sneezeweed (Helenium), Spiraea (Spiraea), Sweet Clover (Melilotus), Sweet
Pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia), Tamarisk (Tamarix), Teasel (Dipsacus), Verbena
(Verbena), Vetch (Vicia), Vipers Bugloss (Echium) Zinnia (Zinnia), etc.
Rather poorer flowers are these: Ageratum, Alyssum and other mustards (some wild
mustards are popular, but most cultivated sp. attract butterflies weakly, except
Rocket), Azalea (Rhododendron), Bachelor's-Button (Centaurea cyanus), blueberry
(Vaccinium), Bluets (Houstonia), Boneset (Eupatorium), Clematis, Honeysuckle (Lonicera),
Larkspur (Delphinium such as D. ajacis, though some swallowtails like it),
Linden, Pea, Penstemon, Phlox, Potentilla, Saxifrages, Snowberry (Symphoricarpos),
sunflower (Helianthus), Viburnum (Viburnum).
The most worthless flowers for butterflies are these: Barberry, Bellflower
(Campanula), Bluebells (Mertensia), Bouncing Bet (Saponaria), Buttercup (Ranunculus),
Cannas, chicory (Cichorium), Columbine (Aquilegia), Elder, Evening Primrose,
Forget-Me-Not, Four-O'Clocks, Geraniums (only a few small skippers and lycaenids
visit them), hollyhock, Iris, Lilies (butterflies almost never visit lilies),
Lobelia, Lupines (Lupinus spp., which only bumblebees like), Mallow (Malva),
Morning Glories, Nightshade, Orchids (butterflies almost never visit orchids),
Petunia, Pinks, Poppies, Roses, Snapdragon, Speedwell (Veronica), Spiderwort,
Violets/Pansies, Squash (honeybees pollinate them), Umbels (carrot and dill
etc.), Yarrow, Yucca.
Books on insect pollination describe butterfly-pollinated flowers as having a
landing platform, like a sunflower. But actually, most flowers popular with
butterflies lack this platform. Butterfly flowers can be large or small, and can
be of any color. The only requirements seem to be a flower-tube that is not too
long for the butterfly's proboscis (thus small butterflies with short proboscis
length may choose flowers different from large butterflies with long proboscis
length). And butterfly flowers must have a reasonable sugar reward, and a good
scent helps also. Unfortunately, decades and centuries of horticultural breeding
programs that produced many garden flowers too often destroyed their ability to
attract butterflies: typically the flower breeder tries to multiply the number
of petals on the flower from the original five to 50 or more (roses, for
example), which makes it difficult for the butterfly to obtain nectar; and the
breeder's generations of hand-pollination inadvertently breeds out flower aromas
and nectars; the end result is that butterflies are not attracted by the scent
and could not get nectar from the flower even if it had any.
Butterfly Hostplant Garden
Planting butterfly hostplants may attract breeding butterflies to your yard.
Hackberry trees are eaten by Asterocampa celtis/ Hackberry Butterfly
larvae, and just one big tree or a number of smaller ones can feed an entire
little colony of these butterflies. Elm trees are eaten by Nymphalis antiopa/Mourning
Cloak , Polygonia interrogationis/Question Mark, etc. Apple tree leaves
are eaten by Papilio glaucus/Tiger Swallowtail, Limenitis/Viceroy,
and occasionally Satyrium liparops/Striped Hairstreak. Willows such as
Weeping Willow are eaten by Limenitis/Viceroy and Papilio glaucus/Tiger
Swallowtail. Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) is a popular host for Papilio
multicaudata/Two-Tailed Tiger Swallowtail. False Indigo (Amorpha) and Black
Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) are small trees that are good hostplants for
Epargyreus clarus/Silver-Spotted Skipper larvae. Clover (Trifolium repens)
in your lawn is a good hostplant for Colias philodice/Common Sulfur and
eurytheme/Orange Sulfur (Alfalfa Butterfly), and Everes comyntas/Tailed
Blue. A grass lawn can serve as hostplant for various grass-feeding skippers,
such as Polites themistocles/Tawny-Edged Skipper, P. peckius/("coras")
Yellow-Patch Skipper, or Hylephila phyleus/Fiery Skipper. Apple trees are
sometimes eaten by Limenitis/Viceroy and Papilio glaucus/Tiger
Swallowtail. Prunus trees (cherry, plum, peach, etc.) are also eaten by
Papilio/Swallowtail, Limenitis/Viceroy, Satyrium liparops/Striped
Hairstreak, etc. Gooseberry and Currant bushes can support some.
Polygonia/Question Mark caterpillars. Hundreds of butterfly hostplants
could be planted; determine the butterflies you want to grow, find out if they
occur in your area and can live in towns, then look up their hostplants and see
if you can grow those plants in your yard.
In southern Florida, cycads planted in yards in Miami helped bring the butterfly
Eumaeus atala/Coontie Hairstreak back from near-extinction. This
butterfly was evidently widespread in southern Florida until the 1920s or 1940s,
but was nearly absent there from the 1950s to 1970s, but then a colony was
discovered, and several lepidopterists successfully recovered the butterfly by
transplanting larvae to hostplants at new locations, and the butterfly started
spreading on its own, becoming (some people say) almost a pest in Miami where it
eats cycads grown in residents' yards. At Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami, E.
atala ate 10 of the 11 known cycad genera, refusing only the Central American
Ceratozamia. So if you live in southern Florida, planting cycads will help E.
atala/Coontie Hairstreak; the only possible drawback is that in order to grow
these stunning yellow-green-jeweled butterflies you must be able to tolerate the
beautiful red larvae eating small amounts of some of your plants.
If you wish to rear butterflies, to study their life histories or to rear adults
for your collection, you can transplant their native hosts to your garden or
grow them from seed, then catch a female in nature, bag it inside a cheesecloth
bag tied over a branch of the plant (tied onto the stem with wire bread-bag
twisters), and the female will lay eggs on the plant and the larvae will grow
within (if the larvae consume that branch fully you will have to bag them onto
another branch). This "bagging" rearing method also works very well on plants in
nature. Thus, if you plan to rear a dozen species next season, you can start
growing their hostplants in your garden now, then by next year they will be
fully established so you can use them for rearing.
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This site was last updated 05/25/04