Build It and They Will Come; Creating a Butterfly Garden Part 2
By John Shaffer

In my previous article, I promised that I would elaborate on the types of plants used to attract and retain butterflies. With some selective planting, anyone can create a Utopia for butterflies.

Let's review why butterflies visit a garden. They are searching for the basic necessities of life as they know it. Food, shelter and comfort are the ingredients needed to attract and maintain these flying flowers. Most adult butterflies need nectar for substance and host plants for the females to lay their eggs upon. The host plants will provide food for the immature caterpillars during the early stages of metamorphosis.

Butterflies need to warm their bodies before they can become active. To do this, they often sit on a reflective surface such as a flat stone, spread their wings, and turn their backs to the sun. Their wings work like solar panels, absorbing the sun's warmth that is then transferred to their bodies. Butterflies like bright sunny areas protected from high winds. Could it be a coincidence that the plants they prefer relish this same protection from the wind? Hmm…I see a pattern formulating. Select an area around your yard that has at least six hours of sun each day. If you are fortunate enough to own an extremely large yard, you also can plan a garden that consists of separate sections that are not adjacent to each other.

Nectar plants are plants with flowers that produce the sweet fluid that many insects, including butterflies, use as food. Most butterflies must land in order to get to the nectar. They prefer plants having either clusters of short tubular flowers, or flowers with large, flat petals. Butterflies are active from early spring through frost, and having a mix of plants in your garden that flower throughout this entire time will attract them all season long.
An important item to keep in mind when selecting your plantings is that butterflies are insects. Like most insects, butterflies are nearsighted. OK. Here comes the dreaded quiz. What does the fact that butterflies are nearsighted have to do with planting? Give up? Large stands of a particular flower will be sighted more easily by the butterfly than would a single flower. Flower colors play an important role in this hide and seek game. Most butterflies prefer plants that have pink, red, purple, yellow or orange flowers. Butterflies appear to be attracted to areas with large masses of a single color, or closely related colors, rather than gardens with many colors mixed together.

There are some butterflies that rarely feed on nectar and will only visit a garden if it has some extra touches, such as rotten fruit. The best fruits are those that are either soft, such as banana or moist, like watermelon. You may want to make sure that these items are in a protected area as they sometimes attract wasps as well as butterflies.
So how about those host plants mentioned earlier. Since caterpillars can not travel far to find their own food, the female locates and lays her eggs on only the type of plant that the caterpillar can use as food. Most species of caterpillars are particular about the type of plants they can eat. If the egg was not placed on the correct plant, the caterpillar hatching from that egg will not survive. Many native trees and other plants found in and around our yards are host plants for caterpillars.

However, there are a variety of plants that can be included in a garden that are excellent host plants. Young caterpillars have a voracious appetite. If you provide the vitals, they will obligingly feast. Most of us do not like to see plants in our gardens that have been chewed on by insects. To avoid this, you may want to locate host plants in areas that are not highly visible, or in a separate garden area a short distance from the nectar plants. However, if you do not provide host plants, you will have fewer butterflies.

As I mentioned in my previous article, an abundance of nectar and larval food plants will provide a cornucopia of substance for butterflies. As promised; here are my favorite attractant plant foods and the associated butterflies that are attracted to them:

" Buckeye Butterfly - Their chosen larval food plants are plantains (Plantago species) and snapdragon. For nectar plants use aster, milkweed chickory or coreopsis.

" Mourning Cloak - For larval food chose from willow, elm (Ulmus species), poplar, aspen, birch and hackberry. Proven nectars are rotting fruit and sap, butterfly bush and milkweed.

" Monarch - The larval food most prized by these beauties is milkweed (Asclepias species). How convenient of nature to assign milkweed as a favorite nectar plant for the monarch. They also dine on butterfly bush, goldenrod, thistle, ironweed and mints.

" Tiger swallowtail - Suggested larval plant food for these wonders are cherry laurel, black cherry, wild plums (Prunus species ). The attracting and retaining nectars of choice are butterfly bush, milkweed, Japanese honeysuckle, phlox, lilac and ironweed.

Start your butterfly garden with the suggested plantings and you can grow beyond this list to an almost infinite number of species. Although it is nice to have butterflies and their caterpillars in your garden, it is even better if you know who is who. Once you have determined which butterflies suit your fancy, you can attract them and retain them with the correct environment. Two great identification books for beginners are:

Peterson First Guides: Butterflies and moths by Paul A. Opler
Peterson First Guides: Caterpillars by Amy Bartlett Wright
Thanks for allowing me to share.