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Gardening
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9 Flowers That Draw Butterflies
Charm winged beauties and human visitors alike with these enticing, fragrant and colorful blooms for the garden
Cassy Aoyagi is passionate about California native foliage and sustainably crafting a distinctive California aesthetic. She is president of the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers and Native Plants and of FormLA Landscaping. Her work has been featured on the Eco Echo Park Home and Garden Tour, at the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, on the Theodore Payne Foundation Native Garden Tour, and a multitude of other Los Angeles garden tours. The Los Angeles Times and InStyle Magazine, among others, have featured gardens designed by Cassy.
Cassy Aoyagi is passionate about California native foliage and sustainably... More »
With spring blooms come the birds, bees and butterflies. Wherever you are, your local butterflies will crave the nectar from your native flora. Here are a few of the plants I like to use in California to entice a visit from my fluttering friends.
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Horse mint (Agastache urticifolia). Adult butterflies are crazy for this delicately fragrant flower.
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| Silver Bush Lupine (Lupinus albifrons). Lupine is the butterfly hostess with the mostest. With beautiful purple blooms, it's native to the West Coast from Oregon down to Baja, Mexico, preferring dry areas. There are a whole host of native California butterflies that will reproduce only in Lupine! One of the loveliest is Mission Blue Butterfly, with delicate blue wings fringed with white and purple. |
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| Purple Sage (Salvia 'Celestial Blue'). This hybrid loves extreme heat and is great for the sunny areas of your garden. In addition to butterflies, swallowtails adore the nectar of its amazing blue blooms. |
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While these blooms are lighter, they still do the trick!
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False or Desert Indigo (Amorpha fruticosa). If you are hoping to see what goes into the making of a butterfly, plant False Indigo. Southern Dogface Butterfly larvae rely on it for food. Indigo thrives in Arizona, New Mexico and California, from San Diego to as far north as Riverside County.
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Desert Agave (Agave deserti). Agave's spikes are dramatic, but where are the blooms we all expect butterflies to love? Butterflies adore the little yellow flowers that emerge from agave's 15-foot blooming stems. Of course, agaves love dry, exposed areas.
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Narrow-Leaf Milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis). If you live in a cooler climate, milkweed may be more suitable to your garden. Its stomping grounds range from Washington to Idaho, and from Oregon through California and into Mexico.
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| California Yarrow (Achillea millefolium var. californica). One of the few plants that can tolerate swamps as well as it tolerates drought, yarrow enjoys a variety of soil from clay to sandy loam — and the butterflies love it. |
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| Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus). Rabbitbrush is native to California and parts of Utah, where the native tribes say it saved the rabbit from a fiery moon. It also provides a safe home for the Buckeye Butterfly. |
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Joaquin Sunflower (Bidens laevis). This daring daisy attracts Mormon Metalmark and a variety of other butterflies. Can you imagine the stir the friendly, yellow blooms of the daisy would cause when paired with a little lavender Lupine?
More:
Pacific Northwest Gardener: What to Do in April
More:
Pacific Northwest Gardener: What to Do in April
Ideabook published on April 21, 2012.
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In my old house, I had planted a fence line with three types of plants. In the summers, I had literally dozens of butterflies flying around my house all the time -- they would actually swarm together into vertical columns of color in the backyard! A good guidebook of what to plant for each region of the USA is available at ButterflyWorld.com.
Message me and I can help you plan your butterfly garden. Our house was the most popular in the neighborhood and people used to ask why the butterflies were always around our yard and not theirs.