Wildlife
A Garden for Butterflies: Nectar and Host Plants
Fill the garden with butterflies. The nectar flowers they feed on, and the host plants their caterpillars need.
A garden alive with butterflies is one of summer's great pleasures, and it is surprisingly easy to create. Butterflies need two things: nectar to fuel the adults, and host plants for their caterpillars to eat. Provide both and you do not just attract butterflies, you help raise the next generation in your own backyard.
Aim for nectar-rich, flat or clustered flowers, the easiest for a butterfly to land on and feed from, and keep something in bloom from spring to fall. Many of the best are also native plants and double as pollinator favorites.
Nectar plants butterflies flock to
These are the heavy hitters: rich in nectar, with broad or clustered flowers that make perfect landing pads.
Echinacea purpurea
Big, flat-centered daisies that make perfect landing pads, covered in butterflies all summer.
Liatris
Purple bottlebrush spikes, one of the very best butterfly plants, worked from top to bottom.
Eutrochium
Towering mauve flower heads at the back of the border that butterflies cannot stay away from.
Asclepias tuberosa
A milkweed with brilliant orange clusters, feeding adult butterflies and monarch caterpillars both.
Phlox paniculata
Fragrant, nectar-rich heads in high summer that draw swallowtails and many more.
Hylotelephium 'Autumn Fire'
Flat flower heads that become a butterfly landing platform in late summer and fall.
Keep the buffet open all season
Stretch the nectar from spring to the first frosts with these, so there is never a hungry gap.
Agastache
Long-blooming nectar spikes with anise-scented foliage that butterflies and bees work for weeks.
Symphyotrichum novae-angliae 'Purple Dome'
A mound of purple daisies in fall, vital fuel for butterflies heading into winter.
Buddleia davidii
Named for good reason: fragrant wands smothered in butterflies all summer (deadhead to keep it in check).
Zinnia elegans
Easy, bright, and endlessly nectar-rich, and the more you cut the more the butterflies get.
Lantana camara
Heat-loving clusters that bloom nonstop and are a particular favorite of swallowtails.
Feed the caterpillars too
A real butterfly garden feeds more than the adults. Butterflies lay their eggs on specific host plants their caterpillars must eat, and milkweed (butterfly weed) is the only food monarch caterpillars will touch. Leave a few leaves to be nibbled, skip the pesticides entirely, and you raise the next generation rather than just feeding this one.
What flowers attract butterflies?
Nectar-rich, flat or clustered flowers make the best landing pads: coneflower, liatris, joe pye weed, phlox, asters, zinnias, and butterfly bush are all reliable.
What is the difference between nectar plants and host plants?
Nectar plants feed adult butterflies, while host plants feed their caterpillars. A good butterfly garden needs both, and milkweed is the essential host for monarchs.
How do I attract more butterflies?
Plant nectar flowers that bloom from spring to fall, add host plants like milkweed, plant in sunny drifts, provide a shallow water source, and never use pesticides.
Design a garden with these plants
Open BloomsEye Studio with this guide's plants ready to drop onto a plan, then watch the whole bed bloom across the year.