Jo...

This is the link to the butterfliesandmoths.org website which shows butterflies for Harris County.

You can browse through that website and when you click on a butterfly species you can read more about it with regards to identification, life history, flight, habitat, range etc. More so, it lists caterpillar hosts and adult nectar sources.

You can decide what you want to plant to attract a certain species and what larval host plants you will want to add to your yard.

If you plant it, they will come!!!

~ Cat

Here is a link that might be useful: Butterfliesandmoths.org Harris County

Hi jo I live close to you I grow mexican sunflower,mexiacan flame vine,Milkweed and porter weed lots of rue,butterfly bush,cassia,pipevines and false nettle,tons of passionflower plants .

Thanks for the info! I hope to participate more as the year goes on. I like taking pics, so it would be nice to have a place to post them. :)

JO

Hey Angie

Is your false nettle in the shade, or can it handle the hot Texas sun? I have not bought any because I thought it needed shade, which I don't have. Just let me know! Thanks!

Yes it is a shade lover but does well in pots too.I forgot to say zinnas and dill also salva grows wild here it seeds out everywhere .I planted my rue in morning sun it did really good cant take evening sun well you can get butterfly eggs at shady oaks they also have alot of hard to find host plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: Shady Oaks butterflyfarm

Don't forget Pentas and Lantana, with the exception of whiteflys on lantana, these are both "fire and forget" butterfly plants. and pentas will even bloom with some shade, though it likes full to part sun.
Passion Vine is one of the best. Ours is covered with Gulf Fritiliary...sp? all year long and the blooms are awesome, but BEWARE: Passion Vine spreads VERY aggressively from its roots underground I've had it pop up as far as 15 feet away. So I recoment putting it in a big pot on a trellis.

About passionvine...do you know if it spreads so easily like that up north?

"About passionvine...do you know if it spreads so easily like that up north?"

Most varieties of passionvine do go crazy, but the cats make quick work of it once the gulf frits find it! Last year, I had dozens of cats at any one time, and most of the summer, they'd eaten every tiny speck green from the vine (they'd sort of crawl around pathetically looking for food... I gave a couple hundred cats over a period of a few months to a friend who grows a ton of passionvine so she could feed them). My vine has recovered and is growing wonderfully right now, nice and lush, but I've seen frits in my yard already, so it's just a matter of time before they devour it again. So, in short, if you're growing passionvine for butterfly gardening, you can never have enough, and I consider it a plus that it grows so well.

The first butterflies I ever raised (I'm in Houston, too) were swallowtails--I went to harvest some parsley one day, and discovered cats on it (that's how I got into butterfly gardening, actually--it was a happy accident). Now I grow a bunch of fennel for them, which they prefer over the parsley (they won't touch the parsley until the fennel is gone), and the fennel grows really well in our area and is very easy to find at all the garden centers, so try that, too.

I'm also growing frog fruit and blue pea vines this year, and both of those host plants are growing very nicely right now, but no cats yet on either. And, of course, milkweed, but no matter how much I have it's never enough.

Good luck!

What conditions does your blue pea vine prefer in the Houston area? I had 2 and tried one in the ground in full sun, one potted in part shade. They both died, so, I obviously did something wrong.

Thanks,
Janet

Redbay and sassafras are host plants for the palamedes and spicebush swallowtails respectively.

Whatever you do do not order plants from the east coast, Please for love of God's Creation source your plants locally, or alteast not from the infected areas along the east coast.

There is a deadly disease on the eastcoast wiping out the redbay and some of their relatives.

I remember in 2003 when this disease was first discovered, and it has moved quite a bit slower than many thought.

It is quite possible that it may naturally not make it's way to Texas, unless ofcourse, naturally, humans step in and order some plants with the carrier in the soil and speed it right along.

Here is a link that might be useful: News

I've got mine in afternoon sun, well-draining soil--treat it like a morning glory vine. I have a hard time starting them from seed, but once they decide to grow, all I have to do for them is deadhead them.

Iv only had one bad experance with passiflora its the Edulis Flavicarpa.... it is very agressive and wont plant it again but all the others have be fine I wish they would sind out runners Id love more hehehe.

My family also started out with just the milkweed 7 years ago. Hope your family continues to enjoy butterfly gardening.

My favorite hosts plants for this area are:
Milkweed A. currsivasa - Monarchs and Queens
silky yellow milkweed
Passion Flower Vine (Lavender lady P. Alto) - Gulf Frits
Passion Flower Vine (blue Boquet) - Gulf Frits
Texas frogfruit (Phyla nodiflora)
Dutchman's pipe (A. elegans) - Goldrim Swallowtail
Bronze Fennel - Black Swallowtail
Rue - Giant Swallowtail
cassia corymbosa - Sulphers
Aristolochia fimbriata - Pipevine Swallowtail

Some other host plants that I have are:

Red Flame Acanthus (Anisacanthus Wrightii)
Cowpen Daisy
Aristolochia tomentosa Pipevine Swallowtail
False Indigo. (Amorpha fruticosa)
Boehmeria cylindrica (false nettle) Red Admiral
Candlesticks (Cassia alata)

Some Favorite nectar plants:
Blue Mist flower (Eupatorium greggii)
Mexican flame vine
blue porterweed
purple porterweed
Indigo Spires Salvia
Lantana montevidensis (purple and white)
Mexican Heather
Verbena bipinnatifida Moss Verbena
Verbena bonariensis