I have heard that butterflies are attracted to a plethora of the same colored flowers bunched together, so if you could group all similar colors together in your bed, this may help. You must have a sunny location if you are growing milkweed, so this is not the problem (butterflies are cold-blooded, so they need sun to keep body temp. up). Do you have plenty of wind protection? Their delicate wings need this... The last thing I can think of that may be missing is a water source... I prefer to leave mud out for butterflies... There is a tiger swallowtail who has visited my yard every day for the past couple of weeks. Although he politely ignores all of my nectar sources, he does partake in sipping from a puddle of mud that is exposed to a couple hours of sunlight each day... Hope this helps...

Jenny

I'm no expert, but think that 'more is better' when it comes to attracting butterflies. By that I mean both more species and more plants of each species. More species of both nectar and host plants will tend to attract both a greater diversity of species, over a longer time period. More plants of each species will increase the nectar supply available during the bloom period, allowing individuals (or multiple individuals of a given species) to stay in your garden longer.

Plant some coneflowers next the milkweed.. and they will come.

What type of milkweed are you growing?

I've had the most caterpillars on asclepias incanarta.

Dear prairieclover,
It's June 1, and you are in Zone 3a, which says to me it's farther north. Butterfly migration patterns are such that you may not see much until later in the month. Hang in there.

I hate to ask the obvious and don't mean to insult...but you are not using pesticides or having weed/feed stuff done are you?

Robin

this thread seems to reflect my concern as well. I can
recall lots of butterflies of several species over the past 28 years since I have been living here as well as a wide variety of birds, both seed eating and insect eating birds.
In my area there has been wholesale decimation of the surrounding wildlands and farmlands for housing and other developments. With this has been increased usage of pesticides and herbicides as most people are indoctrinated to have the lawn and flower beds that suit the interests of real estate developers (no offense but it seems so).
Nobody around here as far as I know is concerned about insects apart from getting rid of them!
So what I have seen are losses in the diversity of birds that visit and even more loss in insects. Gone are the American Goldfinch, the Lesser Goldfinch, different warblers, Common Yellowthroat, and even blackbirds. The most noticeable loss in insects are the bees, wasps, and yellowjackets which most folk fear and focus their campaigns at. I only just this Sunday have finally seen my
first large butterfly, a Swallowtail, and one representative of a couple of other species apiece. Have not seen any dragonflies at all. I do have a few damselflies but these grew here in one of my pools. If the creatures are about they will find my yard as I have all kinds of flowering plants and lots of places for the birds and the bugs to check out! But my feeling is that whatever
insects are out there-unless they are on a mass migration
it is doubtful they will fly through this area. I believe most are following the food routes around the city as our
city really has no green beltness to it. It is sterile.

terrestrial man,
Sure wish this subject hadn't been started, because I could go on for hours about changes that I have seen.

I will share this story with you. My property is terraced in the back. For about five years, I've had a small garden on the lower level. It was a great place in the heat of mid-August (summers are very dry here). There were bugs and critters of all kinds. I would occasionally surprise birds who slept mid-day in the cool shade near the tomato plants. It was a very sheltered, quiet place. I maintained a very diversified garden. I had tomato plants 7 feet high.

One day, the neighbors decided they needed to do something with their backyard, to "make use" of the space. A crew brought earthmovers in, and the noise was incredible. It was on the other side of a 6 foot fence. They tore out their overgrown mess and installed lawn. Who knows what fertilizers, with or without insecticide, they put down.

My garden disappeared overnight. Even the bugs left. You can't imagine what noise does to the bird and insect world. The garden was destroyed....and I couldn't get it back. It never was the same.

So, my point is this....as you've indicated, changes that occur in the environment impact insects and butterflies. This is especially important in over-wintering regions. Both noise and insecticides are problematic. So, even if a nice butterfly garden exists up north, it may not be visited.

I've always been surprised by the ability of the butterflies to find my native plantings in the suburban sea of monocultural lifeless landscape.

My yard is buzzing with bumblees and moving with insects and butterlies.

I often wonder how they can find my flowers when there is no milkweed for miles.

So in my experience, no matter what your neighbors are doing you can still attract bugs/butterflies into your yard.

Though I do agree that greenthumbannie's garden will probably never be the same and its sad that people can be so thoughtless with respect to land management.

This thread reminds me of the words of Laurie Otto: "If suburbia were landscaped with meadows, prairies, thickets, or forests, or combinations of these, then the water would sparkle, fish would be good to eat again, birds would sing and human spirits would soar."

Thanks Joepyeweed for the Laurie Otto quote.
It is good to hear that the wild little things do make it into your area. I think that city government can do a great deal in how they manage plantings and green space within their city limits. With effective green space placement that allow for the movement of insects through a city will add to enrichment but alot of folk just are put off by bugs!! So it is like "This Island Earth" here and there by folk who share that interest and love of the diversity of life and especially of those little ephermeal creatures who flittingly enter our space for those brief moments of their existence. So I have learned to cherish even more that occasional swallowtail or that little butterfly that I keep meaning to find an id on! Or my resident population of mini-grasshoppers that arise for a few months and then disappear back into the garden to arise again next year. It is nice to realize that life is going on and you can share God's view of it while the guys/gals in the cars with their music blasting so loud the noise vibrates your windows have only noise to comfort their hearts and have lost out on the intricate beauty all around them.

Wow! Thanks everyone, so much to think about! Greenthumb, I love those words "installed lawn", so true. Lawn just doesn't grow well here, without a ton of effort, so some of us in the neighbourhood have been looking at some alternatives to lawn, and it seems to have inspried a bit of a revolution. More and more folks in my neighbour have finally wised up that it's not worth it to mow a 30x15 ft lawn and people are starting to put in rock gardens, ponds, veggie gardens, it's really great.

I don't know what's up with the butterflies, I'm doing everything mentioned here, except maybe I might try putting out a little mud. Although the warmth would explain why I haven't seen any swallowtails, the Golden Alexanders are in a cooler garden then the Milkweed. Maybe I will try moving some of the alexanders next to the milkweed. I guess it all takes time. I mostly just want my kids to see the caterpillars, they are so brightly colored, the kids would love that. They are so into bugs and critters, just that they are getting a little bored of slugs, worms and spiders, we have seen the odd lady bug larva, they thought that was pretty cool.
Thanks for the tips!

I've read that butterflies like unmown grass. The more natural, and the more variety, the better - would be my guess. I don't know if they grow in your area, but butterflies at my house love

Lantana Camara

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=LACA2

and something called blue mistflower

http://2bnthewild.com/plants/H242.htm

Benign neglect has worked best for me. :)

Dear prairieclover,
I thought perhaps having a list of plants for Zone 3 would be useful. You may already have found this site, but here's a link to a group in Canada that does butterfly gardening.

Here is a link that might be useful: Butterfly gardening resources

Prairieclover, one of my favorite plants is boneset. It grows into a single stem with a large cluster of small white blossoms at the top. The leaves have a unique bumpy pattern. Butterflies love boneset as do bees. The blossoms always have some visitor. We watched a butterfly fight with a bee over boneset. They dive bombed each other.

The plant is about 2 feet tall, likes sun and some moisture. When fall comes, the greens turn a beautiful gold color that stands out in the garden with the seed fluff on top.

I am growing button bush which is supposed to be a butterfly plant. This bush grows well in wet areas. It is a slow starter for me. Last year the plants had just a few leaves. This season,they are tiny bush about a foot high. Hopefully one day it will be big plant, but it is a slow grow for me.

I love milkweed. There are a number of endangered ones you can buy the seed for. Help the butterflies and help increase the population of an endangered plant at the same time.

That is a good way to make a decision. Search the list of endangered in your state for butterfly friendly plants.

Milkweed is the food plant for Monarch caterpillars, and the flowers are nectar sources for many types of butterflies. If you are located in the suburbs, where there aren't many Monarchs, and you want to attract Monarchs to a clump of milkweed, you will have to create a large enough patch of milkweed to gain and hold the attention of the Monarch. A few isolated plants may not be enough to trigger the "here is a place to lay eggs" switch in a Monarch's brain. Similarly, a small patch of blooming milkweed might not be enough to cause a hungry passing butterfly to stay around for long to feed - most animals seem to instinctively look for larger patches of habitat, which in the case of a hungry butterfly would be nectar-prodicing plants.

So, I think you need to create a large patch of milkweed or other nectar plants to attract feeding butterflies. If you live in an area where there are lots of butterflies then a few isolated flowers might see lots of use by butterflies. However, in the suburbs, which are pretty sterile as far as butterflies are concerned, you'll need a much larger patch to attract and hold butterflies. I think you should work on a patch of at least 50 square feet of milkweed - that is a 5 ft by 10 ft rectangle (could be any shape, of course). I would be surprised if a 50 square foot patch didn't attract Monarchs to lay eggs within the first year or two. For nectar plants a patch of 50 square feet should also be adequate to attract butterflies and encourage them to hang around a while. In both cases, more is better. Monarchs travel long distances and their travels take them to all sorts of places, including cities and suburbs. Idoubt there are many spots within the range of the Monarch that aren't at least occasionally visited by a passing Monarch, so you will have butterflies passing by your garden. All you need to do is create enough habitat to keep them there a while.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is a good larval plant for Monarchs and a good nectar plant, but many people prefer Butterflyweed (Asceplias tuberosa) or Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) because they have showier flowers (but lack the nice smell of the flowers of common milkweed, in my experience). Also, Common Milkweed spread rather vigorously in the garden, which can be a pain. I am talking about milkweed species that grow well in the eastern US. You might have different species native to your area, althoguh I am pretty sure that Butterflyweed will grow well across almost all of the US and much of Canada. There are many different types of nectar flowers. One easy way to discover which nectar flowers grow native in your region is to visit the woods or countryside and look for butterflies feeding at flowers. I think it is nice to have nectar plants that bloom throughout the summer and fall, so you'll need more than one species of plant.

Good Luck

I've just answered my own question! Yes! They will eventually come! THe kids and I just went out to scope the plants and sure enough the milkweed has lots of tiny little white eggs on the underside of the leaves and we even saw a few young catterpillars! Is there something I should be doing to protect our new little friends?

When we moved out to this rural property 24 years ago, the previous owner spent his days mowing the entire property (about 21 acres at that time). Since then, we have let it all grow up. It's been amazing watching the increase in wildlife and birds. We're lucky in that you can't see our house from the road, so we can let it get pretty darned messy (weeds), without anyone complaining. It has made me so aware of how insects and butterflies and birds NEED these weeds. So now, when I see weeds, it makes me feel good.........like I'm allowing the circle of life to happen, instead of mowing it all down into sterility.
I'm sure alot of people see our property as messy........but to me, its all about life!

I have a little prairie garden in my little plot of land here just outside Chicago and let me tell ya, nothing attracted monarchs better than my meadow blazing star (Liatris ligulistylis). It was unbelievable. We had dozens of monarchs last August, as the monarchs were making their way back down to Mexico. Our neighbors are still raving about it! The other plants the butterflies were attracted to were sweet Indian Plantain & purple conflowers. It helped that I have all three plants close together.

Here is a link that might be useful: Check out my butterfly movie

Prairie Clover wrote "Is there something I should be doing to protect our new little friends?"

If your new little friends are the Milkweeds, you might think about whether there is enough food for the number of caterpillars that will hatch from the eggs you found. A few years ago I grew passionflower vines to attract Gulf Fritillary butterflies. It worked so well that that caterpillars quickly defoliated and killed the passionflowers, then died of starvation or scattered looking for more food and probably died on the way. Point is, if you have a limited amount of milkweed then you might not want to let a very large number of eggs hatch - it wouldn't be good for either the caterpillars or the plant to run out of leaves. Either remove some eggs or just keep an eye on things and think about transplanting some of the caterpillars to a larger stand of milkweed if you think they are in danger of eating themselves out of house and home.

Aside from that, I think the caterpillars can take care of themselves.