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Butterfly Garden

Suggestions For New Butterfly Garden

harryshoe zone6 eastern Pennsylvania

9 years ago

I am planning to start a butterfly garden using a recently vacated 10 x 10 plot. I've run a search here to find appropriate plants, but end up with more questions than answers. I've decided to ask for plant suggestions suitable for my eastern Pennsylvania location.

My yard already contains flowering plants and shrubs including echinacea, rudbeckia, garden phlox, monarda and butterfly bushes. There are many butterflies present in the summer.

I wanted to go a step further in my new plot. I've ordered some milkweed seed (Asclepias curassavica and A. incarnata), but wonder if they are the best choices.

What would you suggest?

Thanks

Harry

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Comments (3)

molanic
9 years ago
Hi Harry,

It looks like you are off to really good start already. Did you already see the FAQ for this forum? The link is not very obvious, but there are a lot of good tips there and a list of good host plants to try.

To find plants a little more specific to your region and conditions try the excellent search at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Since you are just working in a 10'x10' area you might want to limit your search to exclude trees and large shrubs. You can enter your state, light, soil conditions, even preferred bloom times. If you click on each plant in the search results and scroll down it will show you if that plant is especially good for pollinators and if it is a host plant for any butterflies or moths.

Be sure to look for plants with different bloom times from early spring to late fall to help out the pollinators with nectar. If you have special butterflies that you want to see go through their life cycle, see if you can plant some of the host plants they use even if they may look a little weedy. You can always surround it with prettier plants. Some of the little skipper butterflies actually use grasses as host plants (even crabgrass).

More specific recommendations would depend on your growing conditions and preferences. Those milkweeds will both work well for monarchs in your area.
imabirdnut
9 years ago
My suggestion would be to make sure you don't use pesticides & to plant host plants that are specific to the butterflies you want to attract to your yard. The NABA has lists for specific areas

Here is a link that might be useful: NABA List for SE Pennsylvania
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bernergrrl
9 years ago
And I will add on to make sure you take it easy on spring/fall clean up. Many of our butterflies/moths/native bees/other beneficials use our yards to overwinter.

Once you know what butterflies come into your yard or area, you can plant specific plants for them. But, it's good to have lots of different host plants for butterflies of your region just in case you get a stray visitor.

Mama butterflies can detect the scent of host plants from great distances too. This year I had a couple of surprise visitors and was glad that I just happened to have their host plants, though I haven't found babies yet.

You can go wrong with native shrubs or native small trees--they tend to support a greater range of butterflies/moths.

Thanks for taking care of butterflies!
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