I'm so sorry about the deaths and devastation - I saw plenty of that in Hurricane Katrina. It's wonderful, though, that you've chosen to make the tornado damaged area a butterfly garden! About how big is this open area?
I'm not familiar with the native plants there, but if this open space is dry, then there are quite a few milkweeds that are native to your area, like dry soil, and, in addition to being the host plant for monarchs, all butterflies love to nectar on the flowers.
The hardy lantanas might work up there, I don't know. The most cold hardy varieties are the old ham and eggs lantana and its sports, Sonset and Miss Huff. All butterflies love to nectar on lantana, and it loves dry soil.
I didn't notice any pictures of zebra swallowtails in your album. I think southern Indiana is a prime area for common pawpaw/asimina triloba, so if you could find a part sun/part shade area with more soil moisture, you might could plant some of those and make a zebra swallowtail habitat.
If you want to plant some trees along the perimeter of the open area and the surrounding woods, you could add some wild black cherry/prunus serotina trees, which are fast growing and host red-spotted purples, tiger swallowtails, cecropia moths, and promethea moths. You could also add other host trees, bushes, and vines, like pipevines/aristolochia macrophylla for pipevine swallowtails - see the FAQ section for lists.
If you're not going exclusively for native plants, then butterfly bush, zinnias, and many others might do for you. All in all, I'd recommend you just experiment - that's what I've done.
Sherry

Thanks for the ideas. I am growing zinnia right now at home, along with some tithonia asters and flax. Those are some of the plants that have managed to flourish more than others. I'm collecting seeds from them for next year.

Funny you mention the zebra swallowtail, they do thrive in the same area, I just can't seem to get one to slow down long enough. Is it just me or do they have a couple of cups of coffee before they head out in the morning? (ha)

The area I'm dealing with is less than a half acre and it's along one of the main trailheads. It's an upland area that stays fairly dry, yet more to the south there is a slough area (or what remains of it). In it's original state it was a thick canopy of primarily oaks, sassafrass, poplar, willow ,walnut, gum and maple.

It is an entirely different ecosystem now.

my only concern for young plants is keeping them watered in the early growth stages. By mid summer it's usually hot, humid and drought like. All I can hope for is a few showers here and there and everything should be ok.

Other than that, I've been using this year as trial and error toward next. Some things good some things not so good.
Some things I just categorize under "what the heck was I thinking"

Are you going to try to make the whole 1/2 acre an butterfly garden? Are you trying to add a little to the ecosystem, or trying to permanently change the natural order of succession?

It might be easier on you if you planted native plants that could deal witht the soil and the drought. Otherwise, you might be lugging water to the site.

Maybe you could create a smaller more controlled border garden in the front and have a wildflower garden behind it?

I let some of yard "go" at the borders of woods, and it's always a very active place for butterflies--sometimes more so than my butterfly gardens. The birch, aspen, and pin cherry seedlings (dominant trees in my area)are beginning to get fairly tall, and I am thinking about deciding which ones get to keep growing, and which ones I will remove so that those areas are more of a dapply shaded area. I'm not sure what to do.

Anyway, I really just wanted to say that it's great thing you're doing! Beautiful butterflies too!

I was a bit misleading on the area a bit.

I don't plan on using the entire 1/2 acre .
There are a few prime areas within that area that are probably the size of a small back yard. I just plan to focus on those.

i planted some wildflowers in a small area this year to see how well they adapt, so I have a few plants that have done well with the dry conditions. It was trial and error.

As far as changing the natural succession, It will eventually return to woodland. To change it, I would have to
remove the trees that will eventually colonize the area, which I do not plan to do. It's DNR property, I'm under their guidelines so to speak.

I'm only trying to enhance a unique habitat for the benefit of the wildlife. (within natures guidelines) And yes, I'm trying to keep things somewhat
natural within reason. I'm not looking to make a sculpted garden, just add to an already active wild area. The flax and chicory are already in the area.

here's a photo of what I'm looking to accomplish

Photo

Sassafras grew in a slough area with willow? In my area sassafras only grows on well drained soil. I noticed a spicebush swallowtail in your pictures, and sassafras is the host plant in my area. I'd leave any sassafras you see growing naturally, because it's a very difficult plant to transplant.
Sherry

The area I'm dealing with is mostly upland forest. It's higher ground and does not hold water.

This area drains to the slew, there are also some natural
drainage "ditches" that lead into the main slew area.

The willow is there but on the southern most low wet areas.
I need to go out and get an idea what type of trees are dominant. After the storm they logged all the oak trees and opened up the canopy everywhere.
What the storm did not wreck, the logging rigs took care of.

On the bright side there is a lot of new young tree growth.
The willows that bloomed last year clouded the air like fog, I would hope that in the future they will seed and grow, they are very good trees for runoff erosion from the farms that border the area.

That garden on that link you gave is beautiful! Have you planted echinacea and rudbeckias? Is there a type of goldenrod (solidago) and eupatorium that is native to your area? Those are big native draws in my area. Any asters too for fall nectar?

Praire Moon nursery has seeds available, and they make seed mixes for certain soil types. Just thought I'd mention them in case you haven't heard of them although you probably have.

Keep us posted!

Prairie Moon - Great site, I will keep it bookmarked.
Thanks for the heads up!!

Coneflower is common here, Black eyed susan I have seen in the area but it's not established in the habitat area.

I did not know you could buy seeds for coneflower, everyone else around here considers it a big weed I'll have to look up that site for next year. Thanks again.

Ideally you would burn it (spring)every 2-4 yrs. Sounds like that is not an option tho, wild flowers respond beautifully to fire. So maybe you could cut it in the fall.
Use an "east,west" a hand tool, I don't know any other name for it. But it will get the seeds on the ground with a bit of mulch over them, ready to go the following year.

Wonder about burning/cutting down areas because there might be overwintering chrysalides and caterpillars?

Yeah, there might be. But consider this,
if one does nothing to keep the area in an early successional stage, the plant type (nectar,etc) to support BFs will soon be lost to shrub, saplings, trees.
And they already have that as it is wooldlands.

Here is a link that might be useful: succession

If you mow or burn half of the property on a rotating basis, you'll stand a better chance of keeping species in place.

Mowing with long-cut blades has the added advantage of leaving plant stalks on the ground, so that cats and pupae have a shot at survival.

Jeff