How to attract butterflies to your garden and keep them there.

Provided by: The Nature Pavilion Gift Shop

Butterfly gardens are easy to plant. They have a lot of color, are fragrant, and have no special shape. The best gardens resemble fields that have been left go. This garden should have either a few trees or large bushes to protect the butterflies from the wind or rain. Your garden should be positioned so it gets plenty of sunshine. Just plant large masses of the nectar and host plants listed below.

Create a "puddle" for butterflies to get extra moisture and minerals. Don't forget to place a large flat rock for a basking spot to complete your "Butterfly Haven."

Nectar Plants

Nectar Plants are the ones used by the butterflies for food. The butterflies will land on these plants and uncoil their proboscis to drink the sweet nectar.

Perennials

• Asters
• Purple Coneflower
• Salvia
• Bee Balm
• Hollyhock
• Shasta Daisy
• Butterfly Bush (Buddliea)
• Lavendar
• Thistles
• Butterfly Weed
• Lupine
• Violets
• White Clover
• Phlox
• Yarrow
• Coreopsis
• Black-eyed Susan

Annuals

• Alyssum
• Nasturtium
• Cosmos
• Zinnia
• Marigolds

Biennials

• Red Clover
• Queen Anne's Lace
• Sweet William

Host Plants

Host plants are the plants or trees that each particular species of butterfly needs to lay her eggs on. It is also the plant or tree leaves the larvae will then eat. If the butterfly can't find their host plant they won't substitute any other plant. So these are essential for a thriving butterfly garden.

Just find the butterflies you would like to attract to your garden (check to see if they are naturally found in your area), then plant their host plant.

Butterfly Host Plant

• Eastern Tiger Swallowtail - Cherry & Tulip Trees
• Pipevine Swallowtail - Pipevines
• Spicebush Swallowtail - Sassafras Trees & Spicebush
• Cabbage White - Mustard Family incl. Cabbage
• Black Swallowtail - Carrots, Parsley, Parsnip, Queen Anne's Lace
• Orange Sulphur - Pea Family, incl. Alfalfas, clovers, vetches
• Cloudless Sulphur - Sennas
• Eastern Tailed-Blue - Pea Family
• Great Spangled Fritillary - Violet Family
• Meadow Fritillary - Violet Family
• Baltimore Checkerspot - Turtlehead, Plantains
• Question Mark - Elms, Nettles, Hackberry
• Eastern Comma - Hop Vines, Elms, Nettles
• Mourning Cloak - Willow, Elms
• American Lady - Everlastings
• Painted Lady - Hollyhock, Thistles, Nettles
• Red Admiral - Nettles
• Common Buckey - Gerardias, Plantains
• Red-spotted Purple - Cherry, Aspen Trees
• Viceroy - Willows, Aspen Trees
• Monarch - Milkweed Family

All you have to do is plant the right plants, and the butterflies will come into your "Butterfly Haven" and stay.

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