Butterfly Gardens

 By Kim Willis- These articles are copyrighted and may not be copied or used without the permission of the author.

Gardeners generally love butterflies (well except for the few who actually damage our garden plants) and want to attract more butterflies to the garden. There are some interesting and beautiful moths that are also fun to watch.  It’s more than choosing plants for butterflies and moths to sip nectar from; it’s also about providing plants for them to lay their eggs on and their caterpillars to eat.

All butterflies and moths lay eggs that turn into caterpillars, which then spin a pupae case or cocoon and then emerge from that as a butterfly. The caterpillars or larval stage of butterflies and moths can be very destructive because they will be feeding on the plant they hatch on and maybe others nearby. However only a few species of butterflies and moths cause long term damage or death to their host plants.  Adult butterflies and moths don’t live very long, a few months at most.  They usually don’t cause any damage and are helpful pollinators of many plants.

You don’t have to plant only native plants to attract butterflies and moths.  While there are a few specialists who only prefer one “host” plant (the plant they lay eggs on) many butterflies accept several host plants and most visit a number of plants for nectar.  Some of our butterflies are themselves introduced species so they are flexible in food and egg laying resources.  When glancing through any butterfly and moth identification guide you’ll often notice that many of the plants that they prefer to get nectar from or lay eggs on are non-native, common weeds or garden flowers.

Many butterflies prefer flowers that have flat surfaces, or have short nectar tubes although a few butterflies and moths are drawn to flowers with long tubes.  Butterflies and moths seem drawn to colorful, bright flowers like yellow, orange, red and pink.  Some also like purple or blue flowers. Scent in flowers is not as important as it is for bees. Night flying moths prefer white flowers. Some butterflies and moths don’t eat at all as adults, some only sip at mineral enriched mud, some prefer rotten fruit or sap, and some are even carnivorous.  And even in this advanced scientific world we don’t know what nectar plants and host plants that some of the rarer species of butterflies and moths prefer.

You probably won’t be able to attract all the butterflies and moths that exist in your state to your garden, because some butterflies and moths prefer plants that themselves like to grow in a specialized environment like a bog or beach.  And some butterflies and moths may actually be unwelcome on your property, like the pretty sphinx moth who lays eggs on your tomatoes that turn into ugly tomato hornworms and the cabbage butterfly who lays eggs on your cabbage and broccoli that turn into little green cabbage worms. But many gardeners do want to attract as many kinds of non-harmful butterflies and moths as possible. 

When you want to attract butterflies and moths to your garden you should provide colorful nectar flowers in larger patches of the same color, rather than as individual dots of color here and there.  Host plants for caterpillars should also be in patches.  One large buddleia can provide a good patch of color but for maximum attraction you’d want to plant a lot of marigolds for example, of about the same color. 

Butterflies seem to prefer flowers in the sun, although they sometimes visit shade flowers.  A patch of mud, especially with a little manure mixed in, and some soft fruit like a mushy banana, a slice of melon, soft strawberries on a plate somewhere can increase the number of species attracted to your garden.  But beware soft fruit can attract bees and hornets as well as flies.

Butterfly feeders also exist in which you place sugar water like a hummingbird feeder but they are not that effective in attracting butterflies and will attract a lot of bees, hornets and ants too.  It’s probably best to stay natural with plants.

There are some plants that will attract the maximum number of harmless butterflies and moths in a list below.  These are plants that a number of species use.  Some may be both nectar sources for adult butterflies and moths and host plants for caterpillars.  A good identification guide will often tell you if a rare species of butterfly or moth has been seen in your county and what host and nectar plants it prefers.  You may be able to add these plants to your garden also. 

If you wish to attract butterflies and moths you’ll have to decide if you are willing to tolerate some plants that are considered weeds and that may not be very attractive to the human eye.  You can choose only pretty garden flowers but that will limit what species are attracted.  One idea is to let one area of your property grow the weedy plants, maybe one that can be hidden a bit.

Plants that might attract butterflies or moths but those butterflies or moths would be unwelcome, such as cabbage, aren’t mentioned.  Try to add as many of the listed plants to your garden as possible, remember patches of the same plant are better than singles. The plants on the list below are chosen for Michigan and surrounding states but many are good for other places as well.

Butterfly plants

Anise hyssop

Asters, native species and cultivars

Baby’s breath

Baptisia

Bee balm- monarda, all kinds- bergamot

Bearberry

Beech

Beggars Ticks- bidens- any kind

Black eyed Susans, rudbeckia species

Blackberries

Blueberries

Black cherry, choke cherries

Black locust

Bog rosemary (Andromeda glacophylla)

Boneset

Buddleia

Burdock

Buttonbush- Cephalanthus occidentalis

Calibrachoa (Million bells)

Campion

Catnip

Ceanothus  sanquineus (wild lilac)

Cheese mallow

Clovers of all kinds- gardeners may want some of the ornamental crimson/reds

Columbine, all kinds

Crown vetch

Currants

Daisies of any kind, wild and domestic

Dandelions

Dill

Dogbane

Fireweed

Fleabane

Grasses- native and non-native, bluestem, bentgrass, Bermuda, beardgrass, lovegrass, panic grass and others – many butterflies, skippers and moths that favor grasses are pretty but pests.

Goldenrod

Gooseberry

Hawkweed, orange and yellow

Hollyhocks

Honey locust

Honeysuckle, native and non-native

Hops

Iris versicolor

Ironweed

Joe Pye Weed

Knapweed

Knotweed

Labrador Tea

Lambsquarters

Lantana

Leadplant

Lobelia

Lupines

Pearly everlasting

Phlox, both native species and domesticated cultivars

Pigweed

Plantain

Mapleleaf viburnum

May apple

Milkweed- Butterfly weed- ascleplias any kinds

Mints of any type

Mustard/rape, Brassica kaber

Nettles (Urtica species)

New Jersey tea

Oaks – native species

Oregano

Passionflower

Paw Paw

Prickly Pear cactus

Privet

Purple loosestrife (yes many butterflies like it)

Purslane

Queen Anne’s Lace

Redbud

Rockcress

Sassafras

Self-heal

Senna (cassia)

Sheep sorrel (Rumex)

Shrubby cinguefoil (Potentilla) all kinds

Spicebush

Staghorn sumac, other sumacs

St. Johns wort

Strawberries, all kinds

Sunflowers, all kinds

Teasel

Tickseed

Toadflax

Thistles, bull, Russian, all kinds

Vervain

Vetches, all kinds

Violets, all kinds

Wild plum, Prunus americana

Willows

White pine

Wisteria, native or Chinese

Yarrow- all types

Zinnias

 This is not a complete list of all the plants that butterflies utilize.  Many tropical plants put outside in summer also attract them and many other annuals and perennial flowers get at least some attention from them.  A colorful garden with a variety of species and letting the garden edges go a little wild will do wonders to attract butterflies and moths.