Home » Featured Articles » Butterfly Garden, Make Your Yard A Destination

Butterfly Garden, Make Your Yard A Destination

Posted in Featured Articles, garden design, insects

Butterfly gardens are simply a collection of plants, butterfly friendly methods, and the addition of a few special features. Anyone can have one in any size space. The magic begins when the butterflies discover it, and come.

Butterfly gardens aren’t perfect gardens… they have some plants that you might otherwise ignore, some with holes in the leaves from being a host plant and having no pesticide barriers. Butterflies are insects, after all, and the pesticide will not distinguish between insects you love and those you abhor. But a butterfly area is one that is worth making not just for your own delight (and what is more delightful than a butterfly floating upon the air, or delicately sipping from a flower?), but for the general environment as well.

More About Butterfly Gardening… and some Monarch Butterfly facts

butterflies love zinnias

Because of the wild nature of some of the plants, and the natural way this type of garden would lend itself to a peaceful place of observation and meditation, consider making it in the further reaches of the yard, perhaps a neglected corner that now is reached by a path, or suggested path of a few stepping stones. With a seat of some type, and natural clumps of butterfly plants within a small grove of trees or flanked with some shrubs.

Perhaps a hanging Butterfly House on a shed wall with a trim of massed butterfly flowers below.

BUTTERFLIES & BEES: Heartwood – Small Butterfly House – Red – $ 49.99
For those who have a smaller space to fill, we present our petite version of Madame Butterfly. Copper trim on the hand-shingled roof pops off for easy cleaning. Screw-on stake included; much fluttering to come. Dimensions 5″ x 6″ x 12″

A Few Tips:

Plant a variety of flowers instead of only one or two species
The best color combination is yellow, mauve, or lavender flowers with a strong scent
Note flowers in butterfly photos, like lantana and zinnias, to clue in on favored plants
Butterflies like to perch on trees and shrubs
Large rocks provide a resting and sunning spot

You might have some of the following visitors….

Ohio Butterflies

As a child I used to collect butterflies, but now that they are so rare in our gardens I don’t do that anymore. I love that people are now “collecting” with their digital cameras and preserving a record of this insect of gossamer and satin winged ornament without cutting short their lives. Some of the favorites were always the swallowtails.

Tiger Swallowtail
Males are the bright yellow butterflies with black tiger markings that light up my autumn clematis in late August. The females are sometimes darker. They like ‘Buttonbush’, Cephalanthus occidentalis, a shrub native to the US, and willows. [1]

Spicebush Swallowtail
Deeply colored, with the insets of bright blue on the plush black of the wings, it is reputed to be found only in the Eastern US and extreme southern Ontario. [2]. They eat the Sassafras tree leaves and those of the Lindera benzoin, a very choice native bush which is fragrant. Called ‘Spicebush’, the Lindera benzoin gives its nickname to the butterfly which feeds on it.

Black Swallowtail
The state butterfly of Oklahoma, these love the plants of the carrot family. Their black velvet wings inlaid with stained glass colors of yellow and blue are striking. Grow Queen Anne’s Lace, fennels, dill, and other plants of the Umbelliferae family.

Another favorite is this one and its mimic, the Viceroy.

Monarch
Ohio usually has a large number of these beautiful and striking orange and black butterflies. That is the icon of butterflies in this part of the world. I love them and keep the weedy milkweeds in the garden just for them. I also started growing the garden cousin Asclepsias tuberosa

Numerous common Butterflies…

We always have lots of Whites and Sulphurs, and I really can’t tell them apart, except for the basic color of bright yellow and whites. I call the whites, “Cabbage Butterflies” which is a tip-off on which plants they love to eat. We also have the sweet little blue butterflies, the Azures. The one that usually catches my eye is the common Eastern Tailed Blue, which dines on the pea family… “yellow sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis), alfalfa (Medicago sativa); various species of vetch (Vicia), clover (Trifolium), wild pea (Lathyrus), and bush clover (Lespedeza)” all of which grow in abundance in my yard and environs.

Umbelliferae

The name of this group of plants refers to the umbrella form of tiny flowers that comprise the fragile looking blooms on top of stems that are often surprisingly tough. These plants also attract welcome insects such as ladybugs, parasitic wasps and predatory flies- as well as the desired butterflies.

Make Your Yard Their Destination

Plants to plant:

Butterfly Plants

Plant Name	Notes	Butterflies

Lindera benzoin, shrub	native to USA	Variety; Spicebush swallowtail, spring azure
Buttonbush, shrub	native to USA	Variety; Spicebush swallowtail
Butterfly bush, shrub	Buddleia is a butterfly magnet; several species and colors
Asclepsias, herbaceous perennial	A. tuberosa, excellent orange garden plant	monarch, red admiral, swallowtails, skippers
Monardas, herbaceous perennial	Bee Balm is a showy herb garden plant	Variety; painted lady, cabbage, mourning cloak, eastern tiger swallowtail
Liatris, herbaceous perennial	Blazing Stars are prairie plants	Painted lady, fritillaries, skippers, sulphurs, coppers, checkerspots
Solidago, herbaceous perennial	Goldenrods are weeds or garden plants... situate carefully.	Sulphurs, whites, coppers, monarch, hairstreaks, viceroy, painted lady
Geranium maculatum, herbaceous perennial	Beloved garden plant	Skippers, eastern tailed blue
Mertensia virginica, herbaceous perennial	wild garden plant, shade, native to USA	variety
Achilleas, herbaceous perennial	Yarrows are water conserving plants	coppers, hairstreaks, skippers, sulphurs
Rudbeckia hirta, herbaceous perennial	Black-eyed Susans, widely used for gardens	Whites, sulphurs, brushfoots, skippers, blues
Violets, herbaceous perennial	good for larvae	variety
Asters, herbaceous perennial	now named ''	ed admiral, painted lady, monarch, pearl crescent, whites, sulphurs
Stokesia laevis, herbaceous perennial	not native	great spangled fritillary
Chelone obliqua, wildflower	Turtlehead is a good garden flower, native.	common buckeye and possibly Monarch
Claytonia virginica, wildflower	Spring Beauties naturalize in woodsy places.	Skippers,Blues,Whites
Echinacea purpurea, herbaceous perennial	Prairie flower	Variety,eastern tiger swallowtail,skippers,great spangled fritillary
Eupatorium coelestinum, herbaceous perennial	Blue Mist flower	many types
Baptisia australis	prairie plant, native	cloudless sulphur,Eastern tailed-blue,frosted elfin
Amelanchier, tree	Fine ornamental	spring azure,hessel’s hairstreak
Crataegus, tree	Hawthorns attract birds, too	juvenal’s duskywing, Henry’s elfin
Aristolochia macrophylla, vine	Dutchman's pipe	Pipevine swallowtail
Schizachyrium,grass	Little bluestem good prairie grass	common wood nymph, skippers

Suggested Garden Plan

butterfly garden (note shallow fountain in back)

For small yard or a specific area of a larger one.
Sunny Spot:
Center the garden plan with a landing station, perhaps a bubbler fountain within some large pebbles. Use smooth flattened rocks, like river pebbles. A space with a spectators bench, nearby. Surround with a flower bed rimmed at its edge with Phlox divaricata, Stokesia laevis and Oenethera speciosa. Mid height plants of Rudbeckia, Monarda, Sedum spectibilis, and Echinacea purpurea. Backed with New England Asters and Buddleia. Site a nice large rock or two within the front of the border. This plan would be appropriate for a sunny spot.

Idea for shady spots:
Dogwoods, wild cherry, and redbud trees are good tree choices to surround your butterfly area.

Focal point of a large flat rock with depression to catch and hold water. Lindera benzoin shrub, surrounded with Chelone (Turtlehead), Lobelia cardinalis, and Aruncus dioicus. Underplant with violets, and Mertensia (Virginia bluebells).
Regular moisture is imperative for most of these plants.

Or these professional plans with pictures and plantlists! (PDF file)