Hi there and welcome to the forum! The most fun thing we do is talk butterflies, host plants, and nectar plants. For children, the best host plant to raise is fennel or dill or parsley since they are not poisonous plants. These are the host plants for the Black Swallowtail butterfly. The females will lay eggs on these plants and hatch into colorful caterpillars that the children will love. My granddaughter particularly loved to gently pet them so that they would raise their orange colored "horns" (not really horns or harmful to the touch at all). The "horns" emit a foul odor to ward off predators, of which there are many, especially wasps who search diligently for caterpillars for consumption. Milkweed is poisonous, so unless you can closely supervise the children, I wouldn't recommend planting them. There is a post in our FAQs section that discusses the poisonous aspects of milkweed and children. It is, however, the only host plant that the Monarch butterfly uses to lay eggs. Other host plants for butterflies that are not as deadly, include plantago (a common weed in grass) for the Buckeye butterfly. It is completely edible, so safe. Your clovers may very well attract Clouded and Orange Sulphurs to lay eggs as they are the host plants for these butterflies. Hollyhocks are one of many host plants for Painted Ladies and are reasonably safe to use as well. Asters are host plants for the Pearl Crescent, a tiny little butterfly. Sunflowers will attract Silvery Checkerspots and Bordered Patches to lay eggs. If you find tiny little dark caterpillars feeding in a group in the foliage (they eat the green and leave behind a "window glass" effect), they are one of these two butterflies. Echinaceas are also host for Silvery Checkerspots. Nasturtiums are edible plants and a host plant for the Cabbage White butterfly. The best nectar plants you can grow are Verbena bonariensis (Verbena on a Stick) which grows to 4 to 5 feet and is best planted among other plants, where the blooms will rise about the other plants, on tall wands sporting purple flowers), Cosmos, especially the Cosmic series of Cosmic Orange, Cosmic Yellow, or Cosmic Red, Tithonia (Torch Flower), and Zinnias. All of these are resseding annuals. The Verbena may be hardy in your area. but mine reseeds so I have it every year. You will get lots of butterflies with just these simple few plants. There is a wonderful website, Dallas County Lepidopterist's Society, that I've attached a link for. Just click on Butterfly Gardening on the left side of screen, and then click on Host Plants Listed by Butterfly, which will give you an account of all known host plants for a particular butterfly. There are a lot of wonderful people here on the forum, many of whom are teachers that can provide a wealth of info on school butterfly gardens. There are also a lot of Texas folks because as we all know, Texas is chock full of more butterflies than any other state. Susan Here is a link that might be useful: Dallas County Lepidopterist's Society

I arrived at TDG just before noon today & the entomologist took the 3 adults as well as the last 5 healthy crysalids...I had a couple that weren't viable. He releases new BFs at noon everyday so they went out with several dozen Zebra Longwings & a bunch of other more tropical BFs...he had Malachites, Small Postman & several Scarlet Mormon(Papilio Rumanzovia) butterflies. He was also releasing a few of our native BFs...an Orange Barred Sulphur, a Sleepy Orange, & a BST along with my 3 Monarchs! Glad they have a new home with nectar available. He mentioned that if these are in "migratory" mode...they won't nectar & will fly to the top of the glass & try to get out...so they may not survive long if that's the case. He also mentioned that you were there last week, EG! He said this was a really weird Monarch migration because there were migrating Monarchs & mating Monarchs coming through North Texas at the same time. I have several PST crysalids but they will be fine until spring in my box in the garage. I am planning to plant a lot more A.fimbriata for them for 2012. They seem to prefer the tender leaves of A.fimbriata over my A.tormentosas. I'm hoping to get seeds of several other native pipevines for my garden as well for them. Take care, Lila Here is a link that might be useful: Scarlet Mormon Info

I agree the problem is not soil fertility, but soil drainage. The plants you listed will do well in soil with very low fertility as long as they have good drainage. I recommend you do a percolation test to see just how well your soil drains. Dig a hole 18 inches deep and wide. Fill it with water and let it drain completely. Fill it again and this time keep track of how long it takes to empty. If it takes longer than 5 hours, I would suggest you look into raised beds for your planting. Al

For those of you wanting to grow Buddleia/Buddleja, be aware that it is invasive (environmentally damaging) in this area. A large area over at Ijams Nature Center, for instance, is absolutely covered over in this stuff. Some plant catalogs (Plant Delights, for instance) say it's alright to grow invasives as long as you aren't near a natural area. This couldn't be further from the truth and is very irresponsible for them to put out to the public. Buddleia/Buddleja isn't documented to be as much of a problem as some other invasives, but if you just go look at the Mead's Quarry area over at Ijams, you'll have little doubt as to it's environmental impact. There are cultivars that are sterile, or near sterile. Supposedly, they are safe to plant. Apparently even their seedlings, if they have any, are also sterile/near-sterile. So, you should be able to plant these cultivars guilt free: Buddleia/Buddleja 'Blue Chip' Buddleia/Buddleja 'Asian Moon' Buddleia/Buddleja 'Purple Haze' Buddleia/Buddleja 'Ice Chip' (formerly 'White Icing') Buddleia/Buddleja 'Podaras #4' (aka Flutterby Grande Blueberry Cobbler) Buddleia/Buddleja 'Podaras #5' (aka Flutterby Grande Peach Cobbler) Buddleia/Buddleja 'Podaras #2' (aka Flutterby Grande Sweet Marmalade) Buddleia/Buddleja 'Podaras #3' (aka Flutterby Grande Tangerine Dream) Buddleia/Buddleja 'Podaras #1' (aka Flutterby Grande Vanilla) Buddleia/Buddleja 'Podaras #15' (aka Flutterby Petite Snow White) Buddleia/Buddleja 'Podaras #9' (aka Flutterby Pink)