Bringing Butterflies to Your Garden

With a finely tuned sense of smell, butterflies can identify their favorite nectar plants for miles around. The key to any butterfly garden...


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Purple Prairie Clover

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Special Lavender Sampler Collection
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  • Topic: Butterfly Gardening
  • Author: Cindy Bellinger
  • Keywords: butterfly, butterflies, butterfley garden, flowers, nectar, pollinators
  • Date: August 2006

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With a finely tuned sense of smell, butterflies can identify their favorite nectar plants for miles around. The key to any butterfly garden (and this includes window boxes) is making the right selection of flowers. Santa Fe Greenhouses carries at least 60 different plants designated for attracting butterflies.

It’s easy to plan for butterflies and if you have favorite kinds, it’s even possible to plant specifically for them because each butterfly species has its favorite flower.

For example, the nectar of the Buddleia (Butterfly bush) attracts the Giant Swallowtails and the Painted Ladies. Asters attract the Common Sulphur and Buckeye.

With even more careful selection, you can provide for butterflies’ full life cycle—from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, and finally to the emergence of a full-fledged butterfly. For some species the process only takes a few weeks.

Eggs are laid on specific food plants so that when the caterpillars emerge, they can begin to feed. Food source plants are often different from nectar sources. The Monarch butterfly is a good example of this. They only lay eggs on Milkweed, and then the plant becomes the food source for the caterpillar. As an adult, the Monarch sips from the Milkweed but also likes other flowers as well.

Milkweed nectar attracts a number of different butterflies like the Giant Swallowtail, Cabbage White, Fiery Skippers. But these other species all lay eggs on other types of plants.

The relationship between plants and butterflies is tight and complex. They are flowers’ greatest pollinators. Development, though, is diminishing their habitats, but with gardens that favor butterflies we contribute to their safety.

Plants that butterflies like include:

So enjoy these garden delights and don’t forget that a pesticide free garden is crucial to sustaining all butterfly populations.