Have you checked the USGS site to see which butterflies are actually found in your county? Then you can see if you have the appropriate host plants. This would be a good way to start.

If you have a lot of other critters (you list amphibians as one) you may also find that they may be eating your larvae! I know that we have a 'resident lizard' that likes to come out and eat my butterflies on occasion. I find the remnants (i.e., wings) of the butterflies once in awhile...I do try to feed the lizards mealworms so that they don't go out and eat my lepidoptera! ;P

Here is a link that might be useful: USGS link for New Jersey

Hi Steve,

It is funny to me that you have not seen caterpillars on your mature Spicebush, do Spicebush swallowtails come to your area? Also, several books I have say that Tigers will lay eggs on a Spicebush, but I don't think that is their favorite place to lay.

I don't think that the butterflies like to use the cultivars to lay eggs on. I myself have a weeping cherry tree, and although I have tigers in my yard, there are no eggs on the tree.

It would seem that a 10' x 10' patch of nettles would be over abundant for butterflies to lay eggs on........in fact, I have been shocked by how butterflies around here can find the smallest of all host plants and lay eggs on them. There are certainly no giant patches of anything for them to find here, and they seem to find the tiny plants.

Are you using some kind of pesticide or BT? That may be a reason that you don't see any caterpilars.

Just some thoughts...We wish you the best on your butterfly garden!

Elaine

One of your questions was do flowers attract butterflies? Yes, they do. I have lots of nectar plants in my BF garden. These are the magnets that bring the BFs into my yard: Butterfly bushes, coneflowers, hyssop, butterfly weed, phlox paniculata, joepyeweed, etc. Check out the nectar sources for the BFs you are wanting to grow and attract to your yard.

One of the best books I have encountered for building a butterfly garden is the Xerces Society's Butterfly Gardening. There are many good websites available, also, but I like having a book that I can grab and go back to over and over again.

Also be aware that it can take time for the BFs to find your garden. It took 3 years for PVs to discover my first pipevine that I planted. After they discovered it, the cats devoured it every year. It took Buckeyes several years to find the butter and eggs. But they didn't adorn it with eggs every year after that. Finally this year, after having planted False Nettle last year, the Red Admirals found it. Will they lay eggs on it next year? Good question, which I can't answer.

Good luck! Some years are off years and very few BFs appear like last year in Oklahoma. This year, however, we are having a wonderful year for BFs.
OKSandy

Your garden sounds wonderful. If you can, post some pics. As they say, "If you build it, they will come." Mexican sunflower Tithonia is a great BF attractor too.

Have you visited any other gardens in your area to see what is attracting the butterflies there? Always a good idea, too. Don't know why you are not getting any. Is this the first year you've either not had many show up, or have you just started your garden this year? I know it took me a good 3-4 years to really get a good population going.

Maybe it's just not a good year for butterflies in your location. Like Sandy said, last year was awful for us, altho we had a really nice population of GFs and Monarchs late in the season, starting like mid-August.

Butterflies are also capricious - for example, they have never really nectared on pentas in my yard before, especially the cultivars like the Butterfly series. However, this year the Pipevines are going nuts over them. Next year, it'll probably be a different story. Lavendar is also a popular nectar plant as well as lantanas, Cosmic Orange cosmos, zinnias, cleome, and verbena bonariensis.

If you get pipevine swallowtails in your area, you might want to consider Aristolochia durior (macrophylla), A. serpentaria, A. tomentosa, and A. clematitis as host plants for them.

Most Black Swallowtails like fennel, parsley, dill, and Rue. The Giant Swallowtails will also use Rue as a host plant, so it's a good herb to get for both. Almost everyone in the eastern U.S. will get Black Swallowtails if you plant their food plant. Generally speaking, they don't like Queen Anne's Lace for some reason. Gulf Fritillaries use passion vine, and the natives are Passiflora incarnata (and its cultivars like 'Incense'), Passiflora lutea (likes shady areas), and Passiflora ceurulea (Blue Crown).

For nectar plants, it's a good idea to try to have something in bloom during the spring, summer, and fall. Your salix should attract Viceroys and also possibly, Red Spotted Purples. Altho Wild Cherry (prunus serotina) will also attract both.

The rotting fruit should definitely attract the sap-dung-fruit butterflies like your Mourning Cloaks, Hackberry Emperors, Question Marks, and Red Admirals. I planted Hops vines this year, but the QMs here prefer the Elm trees so far. I find them on the saplings most of the time, and they're easy to spot because they lay numerous eggs, with a few that are "stacked" on top of the others.

Butterflies that use a number of different host plants? Sometimes you have to just take a "wait and see" to know what their favorite host plant is for your region. For example, your tiger swallowtails may prefer Cottonwood over the Sweet Bay. You can also try Ptelea trifoliata (hop tree). It can take a bit more shade than most host plants.

I don't have an answer for you on your other questions about the RSPs and Tigers, so maybe someone else can pop in here and answer.

Are you planting milkweed for the Monarchs?

Sounds like you have a good start. It is good to have host plants and nectar plants available. Egg-laying mommas like to re-energize after a bit of egg laying. I see them nectar and then oviposit, nectar and then oviposit, so having both will assure you of an ongoing population.

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your garden. We have a saying, "if you plant it, they will come"....and believe me, one day you'll have more butterflies than you know what to do with. Take if from my experience!! LOL!

Susan

I am very interested in the answers to these questions as well:

6. Will red-spotted purples and tiger swallowtails really use serviceberry (amelanchier canadensis)?

7. Will TIGER swallowtails also use spicebush as a host? >>

I just this year planted a salix (Salix gracilistyla var melanostachys, has black catkins) and really hope that it will be an attractive host plant. I also just got Salix integra 'Hakuro Nishiki', but haven't figured out where to put it yet. Will any willow do??

I am also going to plant a serviceberry tree this fall, and would be thrilled to find it is also a host plant.

As far as spicebushes go, I've read that they can attract TSTs, but I've not seen any yet -- although I have SBSTs coming out of my ears! I've also read that the butterflies prefer to use younger plants rather than older ones -- I'll bet if you prune them down regularly to get a lot of new growth it might make a difference.

If you have nectar plants, that will make a big difference -- they'll come for dinner and stay to lay their eggs. They found my milkweed the first year I planted it, and the spicebush the second.

As far as BSTs go, I found the majority of them on my fennel - it was much preferred over rue, parsley, and dill.

I believe too that lamb's quarters can be a host plant for the painted lady, so I let those stay if they're not in the way.

Hopefully someone will know for sure about the willows and serviceberries!

:-) Mel

TST like tulip poplar and black cherry, too. They certainly don't require sweet bay in this area. Tulip poplar is a large tree but you can cut it down to the ground every couple years and it will just shoot up in a thicket. TST LOVE buddleia; there have been twenty at a time here.

The easiest to attract as egg-layers for me are the BST which come to self-sowing bronze fennel, and the monarchs which come to butterfly weed. The best flower attractors here are coneflower, buddleia, zinnia, pentas, tithonia and for the fall migration asters and sedum.

Butterflies can be very local. The Stony Brook Watershed is only about 12 or 15 miles away from me, but they get zebra swallowtails - I never do. They get a lot more woodnymphs and satyrs. Sulfurs don't seem all that attracted to the clover around here but there were hundreds of them on some vetch or trefoil at the Watershed. I've got the occasional anglewing flying through, but I've never found cats on my hops. Butterflies probably look for more than the host plant; they look for a particular local environment.

birdgardener, I think that you just might not have any paw-paw trees in your area, which is why you don't have zebra swallowtails.

susan, thanks for the welcome. the milkweeds will soon be planted.

elain, no pesticides. we have lots of spicebush swallowtails visit the area - no larvae.

thanks for all of the input so far.

steve

The spicebush caterpillars around here may eat sassafrass rather than spicebush. My mother has a lot of spicebush but no cats on them. The butterfles are still there.

A lot of your questions are hard to answer!

1.You probably do need a greater amount of these host plants, however, there's no point in wasting space planting a host plant if your local butterflies won't use it. I doubt that any of your locals will use sweetbay magnolia - it's used as a host by tiger swallowtails in Florida, but probably not New Jersey. Amelanchier is also not likely to be used by any butterfly. Red-spotted purples will OCCASIONALLY use wild crabapples/malus which are related to amelanchier, so it's possible you might find a cat on yours someday, but very unlikely. I've got an amelanchier arborea planted in front of my house, but I planted it because I love the leaves and the fruit is eaten by birds.
2.Nectar plants in your garden will draw egg-laying butterflies.
3.No, they won't. My local tigers mainly use wild black cherry/prunus serotina, but more and more they're using the ptelela trifoliata that I planted for the giant swallowtails - others find tiger eggs on their tulip trees/liriodendron tulipifera. Ptelea only makes a small tree or a bush, so if you don't want a big tree, then liriodendron and prunus serotina won't do, but the ptelea will.
4.A 10'X10' patch of nettles will probably attract red admirals and maybe question marks and/or commas, but there are no guarantees. The RAs didn't start using my false nettles until I got a lot of it in several places on my property.
5.I'm not familiar with that type of willow.
6.They possibly could, but I'd be surprised, especially if you find tiger eggs or cats on it.
7.I've never found any tiger swallowtail eggs or cats on spicebush or sassafras, just wild black cherry and ptelea trifoliata. They might use my tulip trees, but they're all so tall I can't see what's up there.
8.If I were you, I'd plant ptelea trifoliata for tigers, and if GSTs should come your way, they'll use it too - it's their very favorite host plant, at least around here. I'd recommend that you look up the host plants for every butterfly that you see in your area, then plant that, or if there are multiple host plants for a given type, try to find out what the local favorites are. After you've done that, you can plant for rare visitors that you'd like to become regulars on your property.
9.Don't know.
10.Don't know.
Good luck! I love to hear that people are planting for butterflies!
MissSherry

I can't answer your specific questions but I can tell you what I have learned since starting my butterfly garden.

Some butterflies will find your plants right away. Monarchs in my case came as soon as I got milkweed. Some caterpillars were on the plants I bought from Home Depot.

No matter what certain books say about host plants I have found that butterflies don't read books. They choose the plants they want as larval sources.

I visit native nurseries in my area who don't use chemicals. I get both the plants as well as butterfly eggs on the plants (no extra charge).

It helps if you can talk some neighbors into putting some butterfly plants in also. I think butterflies don't want to have just one source of plants. kinda like putting all your eggs in one basket. especially since plants can be eaten down to nothing by one brood. Then what would there be for the next butterfly?

I just got 2 new BF's added to my garden: one came naturally (zebra). Although I've had passionflower for over a year I just saw my first zebra longwing in my garden ovi-positing on it. The other BF came with purchased plants (gold-rim eggs came on Aristolochia fimbriata). Now I have lots of those BF's.

There are sellers online of both larval plants and butterfly eggs/cats if you don't want to wait. I've purchased plants from Shady Oaks in Florida and was very pleased. (No eggs attached).

Good luck.