Plants that Provide Nectar that Butterflies Sip with Gusto!
Image by jpc.raleigh via Flickr
Your basic objective in making a butterfly garden is to attract butterflies to your garden, keep them there when they come visiting and encourage them to keep coming back again and again. And how do you do this?
As we learned earlier, we make sure our garden features both nectar-producing plants as well as ‘host’ plants for the caterpillars. When selecting nectar-producing plants, remember that butterflies are active from spring until late summer and therefore it’s imperative to have flowers in bloom throughout the season if we’re to have any chance of attracting them. Care must therefore be taken to plant annuals and perennials which provide a steady supply of nectar. Flowers with multiple florets produce large quantities of nectar and thus are ideal to attract butterflies.
Some butterflies are attracted by plants of some colors and even seem to avoid plants of other colors. The Silver Spotted Skipper likes lots of colors — red, pink, blue, purple, white - but not yellow flowers. Sulphur Butterflies, on the other hand, prefer yellow flowers.
Short-tube flowers of lantana, phlox, and verbena have ‘nectaries’ that are at the base of the tube and are readily available to butterflies. Pipevine Swallowtails have long proboscises and feed on the nectar of bergamot flowers. And so do birds
The nectar of Alfalfa flowers appeals to Checkered Whites, Dogfaces, Red Admirals and Southern Dogfaces. Incidentally, these plants play host to the caterpillars of the Orange Sulphur butterflies. Alfalfas are a host plants for the caterpillars of Dogface Butterflies and Clouded Sulphur butterflies.
Many butterflies favor the nectar of Asters, including American Painted Ladies, Cabbage Whites, Common Buckeyes, Common Checkered Skippers, Dainty Sulphurs, Eastern Tailed Blues, Fritillaries, Fiery Skippers, Red Admirals and Eastern Tailed Blues. Asters
sometimes serve as host plants to Dainty Sulphurs.
Banded Hairstreaks and Eastern Tailed Blue butterflies will likely grace gardens with White Sweet Clover Flowers. Skippers and Swallowtails butterflies stretch their long proboscises down the long tubes of Beardtongue Flowers to sip nectar. Little hummingbirds also like the nectar of these flowers.
New Jersey Tea plants provide nectar to the Banded Hairstreak and Peck’s Skipper. They are a host plant for the caterpillars of Spring/Summer Azure butterflies. They also attract insects that hummingbirds like to eat. Cloudless Sulphur butterflies sometimes sip the nectar of Cardinal flowers, as do hummingbirds. Everlasting Peas provide nectar to the Silver-spotted Skipper.
Goldenrod flower nectar provides meals for Giant Swallowtails, Little Yellows, Milbert’s Tortoiseshells, Orange Sulphurs and American Painted Lady (By now you might have noticed that the American Painted Ladies like almost everything). Hibiscus flowers provide nectar to Cloudless Sulphurs, Common Checkered Skipper and Monk Skippers. Honeysuckle Flowers attract Giant Swallowtails and Northern Cloudywings.
Milkweeds are very popular with butterflies. Monarch and Queen butterflies are born on milkweeds and attain all of their nourishment from these bountiful plants. Milkweeds also provide nectar for Monarch Butterflies, Queen butterflies, American Painted Ladies, Banded Hairstreaks, Black Swallowtails, Fiery Skipper, Giant Swallowtails, Northern Cloudywing, Orange Sulphurs, Pearl Crescents, Peck’s Skippers, Zebra Swallowtails, Silver Spotted Skippers, Red Admirals and Question Marks.
Rest assured, you can attract a whole host of butterflies to your garden.
