Perennial Plants For Butterflies
A successful butterfly garden has perennial and other plants that meet butterfly's needs during all four life stages, the egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult. Butterflies and moths undergo complete metamorphosis in which they go through these four different stages:
- Egg - A butterfly starts its life as an egg.
- Larva - The larva (caterpillar) hatches from an egg and eats leaves or flowers almost constantly. The caterpillar molts (loses its old skin) many times as it grows.
- Pupa - It turns into a pupa (chrysalis); this is a resting stage.
- Adult - A beautiful, flying adult emerges. There is no growth during this stage. This adult will continue the cycle and reproduce.
You can attract butterflies to your garden by providing them with food (plants and flowers), water, shelter, and places to lay their eggs (host plants). Butterflies drink nectar, so growing nectar-rich flowers will attract butterflies to your garden. Also, when their eggs hatch, the caterpillars eat the foliage of the plant they were laid on, so growing the right type of plants to feed caterpillars is important, since it will allow female butterflies to lay their eggs in your garden.
There are two different functions that plants serve for butterflies: nectaring plants, plants that the butterflies will sip nectar from, and host plants, species specific plants that they will lay their eggs on.
- Nectaring Plants - Most butterflies only eat flower nectar. Different species of butterfly usually prefer different flowers, but they will generally feed on many types of flowers from perennial and annual plants, shrubs, vines, and trees.
- Host Plants - When it comes to laying their eggs, however, butterflies only lay them on the plant that the caterpillar will eventually eat (this differs from species to species). The eggs are frequently laid on the underside of leaves. Caterpillars mostly eat leaves; usually the leaves that they were laid on. Foliage will grow back on plants.
Good Plants for Butterflies
- Host Plants - The first step is to determine which species thrive in your area, then determine what host plant the butterfly needs. Many of the host plants are found in the wild so, if you have trouble finding them, don't worry too much about incorporating these into your garden.
The following is a listing of butterfly families that live in or visit the Southeast and the host plants they need:
- Swallowtails (Family Papilionidae) - snake root, parsley, carrots, parsnips, fennel to name a few
- Whites and Sulphurs (Family Pieridae) - sassia, and the pea family, wild senna, mustards to name a few
- Gossamer-wing Butterflies (Family Lycaenidae) - witchazel, sheep sorrel, curled dock, mistletoe, wild plum to name a few
- Metalmarks (Family Riodinidae) - yellow thistle
- Brush-footed Butterflies (Family Nymphalidae) - hackberry, passion vine, violets, purslane, and sedums to name a few
- Skippers (Family Hesperiidae) - wisteria
- Nectar Producing Plants - The nectar producers are much easier to find at your local nursery and garden center. We often refer to the best butterfly attracting plants as "butterfly magnets".
The following is a listing of butterfly magnet plants:
- Buddleia (pronounced BUD-lee-ah) - Buddleia, also called "butterfly bush", is one of the most popular selections for butterfly gardens. It produces an abundance of elongated cone-shaped blossoms whose sweet nectar attracts many species of butterflies. Butterfly bushes are easy to grow perennial shrubs that bloom from late spring through fall. Butterfly bushes are fragrant and flowers come in many shades of pink, purple, white, blue and yellow.
- Perennial Lantana - Lantana's attract and feeds more butterflies than any plant we know of. Most lantanas are annuals or tender perennials at best however there are several varieties, such as 'Miss Huff', 'Sonset', 'Pink Caprice', 'Mozelle', and 'New Gold' that have demostrated cold hardiness to Zone 7.
Most lantana leaf out sometime in mid to late spring and produce flowers from late spring or early summer to frost.
NOTICE: - Do not prune lantana in fall as this will ensure death of the plant. Wait to hard prune lantana in spring just after new grwoth begins to emerge. Remove all dead stems. A mid-summer shearing is okay to control the zie of the plant or encourage more flowering.
Below you will find a listing of perennial plants that attract butterflies. Click on any link or thumbnail image to see an expanded Plant File that contains a detailed plant description, usage suggestions and instructions for care.
(59) Plants Found. Showing 1 to 6 of 59.