Butterflies are excellent pollinators. Attracting them to your garden has many benefits for your plants, as well as your local ecosystem. Plus… they’re pretty to look at! Learn how a butterfly garden benefits your yard, and which plants are the best for attracting butterflies.
Benefits of Having a Butterfly Garden
There are many beneficial reasons for having a butterfly garden in your yard. They help your garden and the ecosystem around your home flourish, and they can attract other beneficial insects to your yard to help bring growth to your garden.
Pollination
Perhaps the most significant benefit of attracting butterflies to your garden is that butterflies are pollinators. This means that butterflies feed on the pollen produced by the flowers in your garden. Sometimes when butterflies are collecting pollen, they brush against the flower’s reproductive parts and deposit some of that pollen into the flower. Since flowers need pollen to produce their seeds or fruit, attracting butterflies is a great way to get your garden to flourish.
Ecological Preservation
Butterflies are a great way to preserve the natural ecology around your home. Butterflies are an essential part of the food chain since many creatures, like birds and lizards, feed on them. Conversely, butterflies also feed on many pests that like to hang around your home and are great for natural pest control. Butterflies are important for creating biodiversity in the ecosystem, and without them, our entire ecosystem would be affected.
Attracting Other Beneficial Insects
When you have a garden that attracts butterflies, you attract other insects as well. Where you find butterflies, you also find bees, ladybugs, praying mantises, and other beneficial insects. All of the insects that butterflies attract either help pollinate your garden or eat the pests invading it. While some of these insects, like praying mantis, will also feed on the beneficial insects in your garden, they are still essential for having a healthy ecosystem in your yard.
They’re Pretty to Look At
Who doesn’t love butterfly-watching? If anything, butterflies make a beautiful addition to your garden that makes it even prettier to look at!
Best Plants for Your Butterfly Garden
While there are tons of plants out there that attract butterflies, these plants seem to be the best for bringing butterflies to your garden. Even if you aren’t looking to attract butterflies, these plants make a great addition to any garden.
Milkweed
Milkweed is a great option to consider for attracting butterflies. These flowers attract monarch butterflies since they are the only type of plant that monarchs will lay their eggs on. However, tropical milkweed variations can be detrimental to monarchs. Since the tropical variation can grow later in the year than other milkweed plants monarchs can become confused and try to reproduce when they should be migrating. You also need to keep your pets in mind when planting milkweed because ingesting too much of its sap is toxic to animals.
Tickseed
Butterflies are attracted to the nectar in tickseed, which makes them a great option for bringing butterflies to your yard. Tickseed flowers can withstand most soils and are also drought-tolerant. They have a long blooming season so you can enjoy them for most of the year. Tickseeds are also great flowers for cutting into bouquets because they are so resistant. There are over 100 variations of tickseed, tons of hybrids, and they come in a myriad of colors.
Wild Bergamot
Wild bergamot, also known as beebalm, are perennial flowers that are great for bringing pollinators to your garden. They are often lavender, pink, or white, and often bloom atop 2-5 foot stems. They bloom from May to October and can thrive in a range of soils. Wild bergamot is one of butterflies’ favorite flowers, and these flowers also attract hummingbirds. They act as a great food source for many different pollinators.
Black-eyed Susan
Black-eyed susans are another favorite among butterflies because their larger pistils (the center part of the flower) offer a strong and sturdy platform for them to land on. Black-eyed susans are also a favorite among birds because they like to munch on their seeds in the fall. These yellow coneflowers bloom in the summer, and they are semi-drought resistant, making them a great addition to any summer garden.
Coneflowers
Coneflowers are another perennial flower that butterflies love to pollinate. Like the black-eyed susan, coneflowers also offer their seeds as food to birds in the colder months, so it isn’t recommended that you prune the heads off them. Coneflowers also bloom during the summer months and are semi-drought resistant. They like regular watering and plenty of sun to thrive. The coneflower comes in a variety of different color variations, so there is something to match any garden.
Sunflowers
Sunflowers are a favorite not only among butterflies and birds, but among humans as well! While sunflowers are a great option for attracting butterflies to your yard, they can also provide you with a tasty treat when their seeds are ready. Many butterflies use sunflowers as caterpillars since the large flowers have so much space for cocooning. Both annual and perennial sunflowers are a great addition for attracting butterflies to your yard.
Asters
Asters come in a variety of shapes and colors. They require full to partial sun, and they bloom in spring. Asters stay in bloom all the way to the first frost, which makes them a great option for someone who wants their garden to look for the majority of the year. Asters attract many different kinds of butterflies including Black and Anise Swallowtail, American Ladies, Lorquin Admiral, and more. Caterpillars also love to use asters as places to grow and cocoon.
Goldenrod
Although many people believe that golden rod is irritating to their allergies, it is actually ragweed that gets mistaken for goldenrod. Goldenrod is an extremely beneficial plant to add to your garden because it not only attracts butterflies, but it’s also the main source of food for many types of bees, beetles, and ants. For monarch butterflies, the goldenrod flower is one of the most important plants you can have in your garden. Monarchs rely on the nectar in goldenrod to help them with their migration in the winter.
