Thank you leafhead, now you are just exhausting me! :-) I am out of room for any thing larger than Marigolds, snapdragons and yes, asters. I cannot decide which asters to get. They recommend Aster lateriflorus 'Lady in Black' and Aster novi belgii Alert (red), for my area. I did find a great plant list just for the Texas High Plains, so I think I will try their local varieties. They also sell plants, however it is a long drive, but they do have native milkweed, several varieties, I would like to try. Next year I will have time to put in more garden space, as I do away with more lawn, but for now I am full-up! I think I will learn alot this summer, and by next spring I should know more about what is good for me as far as natives, and if I see butterflies I did not expect, I will plant what I can to meet their needs. I am very excited about my first season. I don't think I have a chance of seeing either a Giant or a Tiger Swallowtail. The sulfurs we get are happy with grasses, so I have that covered. I do need Violets! The list never ends.... Thanks again, Debra

Grows under pine trees? I've been going crazy looking for things that only survive in lots of sun. I'm angling to cut down some pine branches to get some more light to the only "sunny" place on the property where I had to locate the butterfly garden. Do your pines give them filtered sun or part day low light at ground level? We have a stand of White Pines and evergreen trees along the side of the driveway and nothing but weeds and that miserable invasive Chinese Wisteria grow under, around and up them. Milk"weed" qualifies but maybe it won't flower as much without too much light? The foliage is important enough to try them there. The back sides of the pines and evergreens are pretty much bare because of lack of sunlight on the north side but there are places along the south/southeast fronts of these pines to put in milkweed. They survive the root competition from Pine trees? Guess milkweed's long taproots get them the moisture they need. One more question I've been grappling with: I've got mulch all over the Butterfly garden and others to help with moisture and temperature control. Should I not have mulch so things that do will reseed themselves? Under the pine trees there's a perpetually growing layer of pine needles. I'm talking inches deep. Do I have to move mulch/needles to have things find their way to soil contact to have successful natural reseeding or do I need to clear some ground space around plants and the property to allow for natural reseeding? Guess the proper answer is to mulch, collect seeds and sow them around myself. I'm laughing thinking about my father's neighbors and their neat as a pin "lawn and boxwood" yards. People are going to have "weeds" popping up and won't have a clue what they are. Sorry for such elementary questions but all I read since I started this gardening said to mulch and get plenty of sunlight for butterfly attracting plants but I now from reading the forums there are always exceptions and you have to find a way to accomodate the natural surroundings to your purposes.

I could probably have a lot more success in butterfly gardening if I devoted my whole yard to it. I have so many diverse interests, it's extremely difficult for me to choose between them, lol! Herbs are great because they do double or triple duty--butterfly food, pretty flowers, edible or drinkable products from them. I'm always looking for plants that have multiple good qualities. Originally I wanted to do edible landscaping, but I have found that the squirrels are quite a formidable obstacle. Not only do they tear up my tomatoes, etc, but they drag them around the neighborhood and leave the remains on my neighbors porches and lawns. My edibles are relegated to a few closely guarded pots by the back door. Just yesterday I caught a squirrel eyeing my cherry toms! Anyway, initially due to my experience at other sites, I thought the buddleia would be an easy thing to draw in the butterflies, but you can't draw in something that just isn't there. I had a large butterfly garden at one arboretum where I worked, we had all kinds of supposed butterfly plants in the garden and inevitably they would be ignored in favor of the buddleia. But that place was loaded with wildflower meadows, woods, etc. That's what originally gave me the idea of planting buddleia in my yard, I thought it would be an easy way to watch butterflies and only necessitate one plant's worth of space devoted to it. Other than the butterfly qualities it has, I am not a fan of the plant, up here it is invasive as my neighbor is proving. Although the fact that her above ground pool is a weedy mess in this urban situation I doubt is threatening critical habitat. We had all kinds of natives in the butterfly garden I mentioned above, and we were dilligent about removing the buddleia flowers before they set seed. But like I said, inevitably the natives would be ignored. It could be in that situation the buddleia was like candy, the cats had plenty of other sources of nectar, and most importantly, they were there in the first place because of all the larval habitat. Yesterday I was out on the front porch and I saw a monarch flying along the street. Perhaps I shall plant some milkweed. I like the plant, it does look kind of cool and smells heavanly. They have a good selection of varieties at the native plant nursery I frequent. I'm not that crazy about the orange variety, but I like swamp milkweed's flowers. On a serious note, if one was to design a butterfly garden for an urban site, it would probably be best to figure out what butterflies one could even remotely expect to foster in an urban situation, and then plant larval foods for those species. Frankly I could care less what those cabbage butterflies like, they seem to be quite able to fend for themselves without my help, :) Swallowtails might be easier to please, I like the plants in the umbelliferea family (dill and the like) I already have two plants in that family in my yard, dill and bishop's weed (although I hate the bishop's weed). I love fennel so that would be easy enough to stick in a pot. I've already mentioned monarchs. Not sure what else. There is a lot of grass and common weeds around there but I don't seem to see meadow or woods loving species. A meadow-type garden is not feasible for me due to the space competition. No room for willows, (love the corkscrew variety but I love my other shrubs and trees more) but I have wanted to try lupines. Even if they don't draw in the butterflies. Hard to grow in this zone though.

Thank you all for your suggestions. As I have done all my life, I considered everyone's suggestions, then I went with my own decision!! I ended up planting the butterfly weed with blue false indigo (baptisia australis). Not sure if their blooms will coincide, but the blue-green foliage of the baptisia is attractive all summer long. Since most everyone suggested echinacea, I planted the orange meadow bright cultivar close by. Jenny