I have five butterfly bushes but they are not blooming yet. Joe Pye Weed and Milkweed come up here ever year for the butterflies. My zinnias are blooming and they can be very popular with the butterflies. The Purple Coneflowers are also popular, especially with the Swallowtails.

I was so swamped this spring that I just started the Mexican Sunflower seeds afew days ago and they are just starting to come up. Nothing like being late. Still, I would never be without the Mexican Sunflowers as the Butterflies just flock to them.

I also have dill and fennel as host plants for the Swallowtails while the Monarchs have the Milkweed.

I have found that the Lavander and the Catmints are very popular with the white cabbage butterflies that flit around the garden.

The swallowtails, buckeyes and monarchs are back. I've already had black swallowtail cats.

I'm growing a lot for the butterflies and hummingbirds...milkweed, bronze fennel, vitex, tithonia, verbena, echinacea, buddleia, saliva, crocosmia, monarda, nepeta, coreopsis, hypericum, heliotrope, petunias, rudbeckia, snapdragons, etc.

Just this week, I updated my blog with the latest on my butterfly garden. It isn't in full bloom, yet. The 100+ degree heat slowed things down a bit.

Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: my butterfly garden update

I notice butterflies visiting my snapdragons and scabiosas more than I notice them on other plants. Maybe they like the cosmos, too, but I'm not sure. I've only seen a few butterflies thus far this year. The cabbage moths were out early in spring, but I haven't seen them around recently.
Lorna

In my garden Carpenter Cup "Silphium perfoliatum" is the second best butterfly attractant, next to the Butterfly Bush. It's probably because the plant is so tall (10 feet)with hundreds of flowers. Carpenter Cup is a native perennial, that blooms in Jul-Aug, in full sun. It grows strong, never needs staking, and blooms a beautiful lemon yellow. After the flowers are done, the gold finches come in to collect the seed.

{{gwi:697519}}
{{gwi:697524}}

I've only seen a few butterflies this year...and only a couple of BST caterpillars on the fennel. Aside from the fennel, I've got butterfly weed, coneflowers, several kinds of salvia, lavender, duranta and buddleia.

The bees are here, though.

In Plum Cottage gardens the butterflies just love hamelia patens, and duranta erecta, porterweed, passion vine, zinnias, and others I can't think of at the moment. Plus the cats love passion vine, parsley, fennel.

FlowerLady

Flower, you live in the butterfly capital of the world. Your so lucky to have so many species.

I've planted just about everything California butterflies like to nectar on. They tend to ignore everything except for the buddleia and tithonia rotundifolia. The bee's are enjoying what the butterflies are ignoring *lol*

This year I've focused more on host plants which are in high demand with the depleting habitat for butterflies and sphinx moths. I was amazed to find many California host plants are VERY hard to find. I searched everywhere for aristolochia californica (California pipevine), the only host plant pipevine swallowtails lay eggs on. I found one place in southern California which carried it.

Edna

This is from early June two years ago of a Swallowtail on my Salvia. A firstÂand onlyÂsightingÂever.
{{gwi:697528}}
Monarchs--we get tons on the Buddleia in late July.
{{gwi:697533}}

No one here is seeing any butterflies to speak of this year. What has happened? Is it all the rain? I have only seen two or three.

I had hamelia last year, FlowerLady, but it did not return. Pride of Barbados did, two of three. I had a jatropha in a pot and when I planted it out, it died. Probably wanted alkaline soil.

When tropicals like Porterweed start to bloom, these fickle butterflies abandon echinacea. So far they're still visiting Laura Bush petunias, I noticed. LB petunias are more like the species and swallowtails visit them often. They never abandon lantana, though. Many different butterflies and skippers visit there constantly.

Edna, I had sphinx moth larvae eat pentas one year, and Datura the next. There was plenty for them to munch without interfering with the plants' well being. Except for parsley, I don't plant intentional habitat, unless you count the paw paw, which planted itself.
Nell

Almost everything I plant is geared towards butterflies. We have a ton of them every year. I have a late blooming French Lilac that just finished up and last week there were almost 10 butterflies going at it at once. I love watching them...

Others I have...

Monarda
Butterfly bush
Coneflower
Foxglove
Phlox
Catmint
Rudbekia
Coreopsis
Snapdragons
and many more...

just a few butterflies here and there right now...we see major butterflies in mid July and on usually.

I always make sure to have plenty of both host and nectar plants every year. Dill, fennel, and pipevine for hosts and coneflower, lantana, salvia, verbena, buddelia, yarrow, rudbeckia, dianthus, and daisies for nectar. This year I've noticed there are hardly any butterflies of any kind in my pesticide free garden. Our local butterfly expert, Dale Clark, said in the Dallas Morning News that the number are just down this year in our area.

I've been planting all kinds of 'butterfly plants' but this year the butterflies are liking the violas and the lobelia. I've also seen tiger swallowtails on the hanging basket of red million bells.
~Renee

I saw quite a few butterflies at the beginning of the summer but not so many now. They seem to like the butterfly bush, the coneflowers, the oregano, and the lantana.

Mary

The hands down favorites in my garden are Buddleia, Phlox and Monarda. I also grow Scabiosa, Lavender, Coreopsis, Stokesia, Asclepias, Achillea, Nepeta, Salvia, Echinops, Heliotrope, Dianthus, Ecinacea and Veronica all of which attrack butterflies to varying degrees.

My Asclepias has finally turned into a large stand and should be flowering this week, so I'm expecting a lot of butterfly visitation to those.

The favorites of the bumbles bees are Nepeta, Salvia (especially May Night) and Echinops.

In my experience, butterflies will nectar on whatever flowers are there that have a bit of nectar -- until they discover something else with more and tastier nectar.

Some butterflies seem to have a preference. Pearl Crescents will nectar on gaillardia while Swallowtails flock to more tropical plants when available. Swallowtails nectar on petunias and azaleas in early spring.
Tiger swallowtails just hung on agastache last August but the dark swallowtails kept to porterweeds and pentas.
The only plant they all favor is trailing lantana, which is a standby most of the year and out near the edges where they find it first.
Buckeyes and American Painted Ladies like lantana, as do skippers.
Gulf fritillaries prefer tithonia, when it blooms, but they will return to lantana.

Most host plants here are not in the cultivated gardens, but along edges -- aslepias across the road in an old firebreak, all passion flowers are at the edges of fields and woods.
Gnaphaliums (cudweeds, everlastings) are everywhere. I even allow rabbit tobacco in flower beds.
Sassafras and wild cherry grow along edges, dog fennel in old pastures, to name a few.

Nell

Oops, forgot the link.

I never get tired of butterfly pics and put them all over the web.

Here is a link that might be useful: Some Butterfly Nectar Sources

Look closely at the stake below the "butterfly"......

{{gwi:697537}}

They pick some funny places to eclose, sometimes, don't they? Show us more, Bouquet, please.

When I looked back, I realized that my butterfly garden link had mostly plants, few butterflies. Here's a more recent one, with plenty of activity.

Nell

Here is a link that might be useful: Butterfly Garden, Early July

Our butterfly counts are way down this year...last year the #1 favorite nectar plant was verbena bonariensis. My native buttonbush is blooming right now, loved by bumblebees and butterflies. Other natives are asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed), asclepias incarnata (swamp milkweed), and common milkweed. A native they are supposed to like is slender mountain mint - I usually only see small pollinators on them, though.

Great thread. In addition to a hosta garden, a rose garden, veggie garden, lily border and more - I have 2 butterfly gardens. One is about 20' long, the newest one is about 50' long. So I'm always looking for new things to add.

3 species of butterfly bush, 2 sp. eupatorium, 4 asclepias species, sedums, lindera, pipevine, hackberry tree, tulip poplar, parsley, dill, bronze fennel, lavendar, echinacea, monarda, violas, bird's foot viola, redbud, leucanthemum, rudbeckia, rudbeckia maxima, lythrum, pennesetums, pentas, lantana, so many more. It's amazing that within a few days of planting a larval host plant the butterfly finds it!

I think I've seen normal numbers of flutterbys this year. I have flowers all around the gardens and flying flowers in between. Love this post!