One suggestion is a red Firespike (Odontonema strictum.) It will tolerate quite a bit of shade and is a top humming-bird/butterfly attractor. It will grow to about ten feet and is very drought tolerant once established. It will be a perennial in your area.

The Vitex will get quite tall and wide and has a short bloom period, but it is very good at attracting polinators when it blooms. It is also deciduous.

The Spicebush and Buttonbush like swampy areas. The Spicebush will probably adjust to normal conditions, but the Buttonbush really doesn't do well if it does get a lot of water, in my experience.

I like the Abelias. They are very good at attracting pollinators and don't get too large.

Tom - I can't think of any plants that are native, evergreen and would be a good fit. It is a foundation planting, but may just toss the whole evergreen thing out the window.

Regarding the Vitex, my shoal creeks out back bloomed for months, all the way thru first week of November last year. They were incredible. Not sure if it's this Alabama climate, but they bloomed for about 3-4 months.

As far as I know, there aren't many evergreen shrubs that are also host plants for butterflies. I've heard of people planting red bay (Persea borbonia) or swamp bay (P. palustris) which are evergreen and keeping them pruned to bush size, but they're only regularly used by palamedes swallowtails, which don't occur in north Alabama. Once in a blue moon I find a spicebush swallowtail caterpillar on mine, but it wouldn't be worth it for you.

Spicebush swallowtails lay eggs just as freely on sassafras as they do spicebush, so you could plant some 'out back' for them. Sassafras doesn't need a shady swamp like spicebush.

If I were you, I'd use one of the native viburnums for foundation planting, like V. acerifolium/maple leaf viburnum or V. dentatum/arrow wood. Maple leaf viburnum has some of the most beautiful leaves, plus azalea sphinx moths occasionally use viburnums as host plants. Bird just LOVE the berries! The best thing about the native viburnums is that they're so easy to grow, they can survive foundation soil, which is usually full of subsoil turned over by the builders and hard to repair. If your foundation area is real wet, you could plant the possumhaw viburnum, which is evergreen.

The best wildlife plant out there is wild black cherry/Prunus serotina, but it makes a big tree. If you have a big enough yard, it would be well worth it to have several. It's host to both tiger swallowtails and red-spotted purples, plus many of the big moths, like cecropia moths, use it as a host plant, bees use the flowers, and birds love the fruit.

In regard to butterflies, you probably should watch to see what butterflies occur in your area, look up their host plant/s, and plant them if you'd like to see more of them. Buttonbush is a real draw as a nectar plant for butterflies and MANY other insects, but, unless you have a consistently wet spot for it, it might not make it.

I have about a dozen blueberry bushes which have gotten big, and they keep me and the birds eating blueberries from about the first week in June until August - I have different varieties that mature at different times. And they're SO easy to grow, no insecticides needed, just acid soil!

There are many plants that make good nectar plants. I have a bottlebrush buckeye that butterflies just LOVE, but it only blooms once a year. You could plant some pentas, which butterflies like to nectar on and tersa sphinx moths like to use as a host plant. Of course, there's milkweed, the monarch host plant that all butterflies like to nectar on, zinnias, butterfly bush, and lantana, which can't be beat!

A good butterfly book that includes host plants, and a good bird book would be a great buy!

Sherry

Sherry - The only others I know of are pine spp., wax myrtle, mountain laurel (far to finicky for my area) and believe some native hollies host.

I have a great book that was written by two ladies about our butterflies titled....you guessed it...Butterflies of Alabama. They wrote it over 10 years of research, really great book.

Speaking of quite a few mentions above, my black cherry and hackberry/sugarberry are waiting to be planted, along with a Nuttall oak. There is one good thing about starting with a blank landscape...room to plant.

Viburnum. ..oh yes...have some small denatutum and nudum waiting for a spot. My neighbor and I are going to have a decent habitat area with all the canopy and understory we are going to have. His trees are mature, so time to catch up.

I don't really expect all the plants to host, but really did want them to be native. I may try either Don' Dwarf wax myrtle and/or dwarf yaupon holly.

Thanks for the detailed response, too!

'Sounds like you're going about it the right way, BamaJoe! Wax myrtle is a great choice, but I was afraid to mention it, because some people think it's weedy looking. Actually, it's a host plant for a few leps, can't remember them all, but the beautiful io moth is one of them. And the leaves smell heavenly!

I planted three sugarberries last fall, and they've make plenty of new growth this year, so far, so good. Last year, while they were still in their containers, some question mark caterpillars turned up on them. I live in southeast Mississippi on 5 1/2 mostly wooded acres, but I managed to find a few areas where the sun breaks through the woods for the sugarberries. Yaupon grows all over my property, and the birds eat the berries in late winter.

Keep us updated as to how your project goes!

Sherry