There are two types of butterfly plants – host plants and nectar plants. A host plant is one that the female butterfly can lay her eggs on. The caterpillars that hatch – butterfly larvae – eat those plants before disappearing into chrysalis and evolving into adult butterflies. Nectar plants are what those adult butterflies use to feed and sustain themselves.
You need both types of plants if you want to have a successful and dynamic live butterfly garden.
For example. Let’s say you’re partial to the Monarch butterfly – you love its bright colors, the fascinating story of its annual migration – and you want to raise some in your yard or garden.
First off, you are going to need some common milkweed. Without it, you are not going to see any live Monarchs. It’s their host plant, in other words. Plant a small plot of it – four square feet, say, all full of milkweed. The female Monarch will lay hundreds of small white oval-shaped eggs on the underside of the large leaves.
White, yellow and black-banded caterpillars will emerge and start gnawing on the leaves like there’s no tomorrow. In fact, there aren’t that many tomorrows for them? They grow quickly and within a matter of days, their outer skin will harden and form a jade-colored chrysalis that hangs from – you guessed it – the milkweed plant.
But when the adult butterflies emerge, they aren’t going to be gorging on milkweed. Their diet is way more sugary and way more liquid. Their long thin proboscis is designed to plumb blossoms on flowers, extracting the nectar inside of them.
So what plants do you need?
I’m a big fan of having at least one – and perhaps two or more – butterfly bushes in your garden. They’re easy to plant, easier to maintain, and they’re like a slice of heaven for almost every species of butterfly. Get them in yellow or red or blue. Get them in purple. Get some miniature bushes to create a hedge for your garden.
Butterfly bushes are hands down the best choice for your first effort at a good butterfly garden.
Beyond that? You want to think in terms of color. If you’ve got a green thumb, rose bushes are nice. Hollyhock are a pretty diverse flower that come in a lot of shapes and sizes and colors.
The point is, if you’re going to have a dynamic population of Monarch butterflies living in your neck of the woods, you’re going to have to have a good blend of both host plants and nectar plants. Skimp on one and you’re going to cut down on the chance to see lots of live butterflies dancing around your garden.
Butterfly plants is a pretty big topic – there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of plants that are attractive to live butterflies. You want to start simple and focus on the basics. If you do that, you can start to expand and build on your experience.
As is the case with so many other things, creating a strong butterfly garden is not a dash – it’s a marathon. Be prepared to get hooked and spend year after year working with butterflies!
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