Butterfly garden Plants
A butterfly garden is more than a bed filled with colorful flowers. To support butterflies throughout their life cycle, grow nectar-rich flowers for adults and the host plants their caterpillars need for food. Add sunshine, shelter from strong winds, and a succession of blooms from spring through fall, and your garden can become a reliable feeding and breeding habitat.
The best butterfly gardens are also beautiful. Coneflowers, milkweeds, asters, phlox, lantana, verbena, goldenrods, and many native wildflowers can bring months of color while providing food for butterflies and other pollinators.
Start with the Best Flowers for Butterflies
Adult butterflies are drawn to flowers that provide easy access to nectar, especially when several blooms are grouped together in sunny, sheltered spots. Planting a mix of species that flower at different times helps keep nectar available for much of the growing season.
Explore Gardenia’s guide to the best flowers for attracting butterflies, or follow the step-by-step advice in how to create a butterfly garden. If you want to support a wider range of wildlife, these wildlife-friendly plants for bees, butterflies, and birds offer even more options.
Do Not Forget Caterpillar Host Plants
Flowers feed adult butterflies, but host plants feed their caterpillars. Without them, butterflies may visit your garden for nectar without being able to complete their life cycle there.
Different butterfly species depend on different host plants. Learn how this relationship works in Gardenia’s guide to butterfly host plants. Milkweed is especially important because it is the only group of plants used as caterpillar food by monarch butterflies. See how to grow and care for milkweed successfully in the garden.
Welcome Monarchs, Swallowtails, and Other Butterflies
Once you know which butterflies live in your region, you can make your planting much more targeted. The Monarch butterfly depends on milkweed as a host plant, while swallowtails and fritillaries use entirely different plants.
Discover the plants and habitats associated with the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail, and Gulf Fritillary. Planting for butterflies already found in your area is one of the easiest ways to turn occasional visitors into regular garden residents.
Make Your Garden More Butterfly-Friendly
Butterflies are cold-blooded insects, so sunny areas where they can warm themselves are especially valuable. Shelter from strong wind also helps, and shallow sources of moisture can provide water and dissolved minerals.
Avoid broad-spectrum insecticides whenever possible, including treatments applied to plants intended for caterpillars. A healthy butterfly garden will naturally contain some chewed leaves – that is often a sign that caterpillars are actually using it.
For a broader approach, Gardenia’s pollinator garden guide explains how to create habitat for butterflies, bees, and other beneficial insects.
Why Create a Butterfly Garden?
Butterfly gardens bring movement and color into the landscape, but they also provide much-needed habitat in places where natural feeding and breeding areas have disappeared. Even a small sunny border or container planting can contribute nectar and host plants.
See 6 reasons to create a butterfly garden, and discover more about butterfly behavior, migration, feeding, and life cycles with these fascinating butterfly facts.
