Grow a Butterfly Garden

by Georgiana Marshen

Elegant Black Swallowtail, Painted Lady, Monarch, and Tiger Swallowtail butterflies are frequent, welcome visitors to many yards and gardens during spring and summer, but you can get these fluttering bursts of color to visit and stay in your yard by taking a few steps to create an inviting habitat.

Attracting butterflies requires providing the basics—food, water, and shelter:

The perfect spot—The area should be open and sunny. Shelter from the wind is equally important, and can be achieved by placing a fence, trellis, or shrubs into the area. Or plant where windbreaks already exist. Plant flowering vines and add amenities such as flat rocks for sunning and leaf litter (fallen and mulched leaves) to provide protection from predators, such as birds, toads, rodents, praying mantises, and bad weather.

Watering hole—A mud puddle is a favorite butterfly gathering place. Create one by burying a bucket up to its rim. Add fine sand and composted manure in equal parts, and enough water to saturate. Stale beer and sweet drinks also are a favorite. Add salt once a week to supplement their diet.

Caterpillar food—Good host plants attract butterflies. Adults seek out these plants to lay their eggs, and newly hatched caterpillars feed on the plants. Dill, parsley, rue, fennel, lupine, foxglove, and nasturtium make excellent hosts. You must be willing to sacrifice a bit of these plants, though.

Nectar plants—Adult butterflies are very picky about their diet. Nectar plants are their food of choice. Plant a variety of perennials and annuals for continuous bloom throughout the season. Arrange them in large groupings to better attract butterflies. Perennials may include aster, rudbeckia, butterfly weed, coreopsis, daylilies, sedum, lantana, and yarrow. Annuals such as cosmos, marigolds, petunia, pinks, sunflowers, and zinnia also are favorites. Shrubs such as lavender, buddleia, rhododendron, honeysuckle, lilac, and gooseberry are popular, as are maple, apple, and willow trees. Like the butterfly, these plants are sun-lovers.

Pesticide free—Pesticides do not discriminate between aphids and caterpillars. Even environmentally safe products like insecticidal soap are deadly to butterfly larvae. Identify the unwanted pests and hand pick to get rid of them.

More information on butterflies can be found at www.naba.org, the website of the North American Butterfly Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing public enjoyment of butterflies as well as saving endangered species across the country.

Butterfly gardens are gaining in popularity. Put out the welcome mat; your guests are waiting.

Georgiana Marshen is a master horticulturist and a freelance garden writer.

first appeared: 4/1/2001