Congratulations, Greenthumb! You're in for the best experience of your life (well, its pretty high up there), and you've come to the right place.

What seeds did you order? There are lots of folks on the forum who trade seeds or share seeds, too! Do you have specific butterflies you're trying to attract? Where are you located; what state? That will determine what species frequent your area.

Most of us here started out with a few things and are now into everything we can possibly attract. You must have host plants for the caterpillars to munch on first of all. And nectar plants or fruit plates to feed them.

Some butterflies don't nectar at all, or nectar on plants very little, but love rotting fruit. I put out well-ripened, almost black, bananas, for butterflies like Question Marks, Commas, Hackberry Emperors, Tawny Emperors, and Mourning Cloaks in my area (Oklahoma City).

Check out our FAQs for host plants for certain butterflies, and then google your state+butterflies to find out what butterflies are common there.

Welcome to the butterfly forum, BTW!

Susan

Hi Greenthumb and welcome to the forum! If you love butterflies, you're going to love it here! Last year was my first for butterflies and thank goodness I found this forum. Like Susan, I'm wondering what seeds you ordered. If you don't already have a butterfly bush, that would a great thing to get. People on here, though, don't recommend getting the dwarf ones like Nanho Blue because they don't attract butterflies. I have butterfly bushes and those were the biggest butterfly attractors for me last year. Also big on the list were Swamp Milkweed, Purple Coneflowers, and Zinnias. Certain butterflies have certain preferences; some are fussier than others. I had Pearl Crescents here and the only plant I ever saw them on was the Moonbeam Coreopsis. Being that I'm new at this, I don't have a whole lot of plants, so maybe they'd have also gone on some other type if I'd have had it here. This year I'll be planting a lot more plants. Like Susan mentioned, I think to have a really good butterfly garden a person should have both nectar plants for the adults and larval/host plants for the caterpillars. I agree with everything Susan said and the best thing for a person to do is to read. The FAQ are very good, and there is much information on the Internet if you do some googling. Check out the link for a good site, and welcome to our group!
Cathy

Here is a link that might be useful: Butterflies & Moths of NA website

I live in North Haven, CT, I looked up what kind of butterflies populate my area, and it turns out there are alot of them, I should hopefully have a busy summer. Well, unfortunatly, I didn't find this site until after I ordered my seeds, so I didn't get milkweed, but I got a butterfly bush which is a beautiful flowering plant, (it caught my eye)you can check it out at http://www.parkseed.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10101&catalogId=10101&langId=-1&mainPage=prod2working&ItemId=0348&PrevMainPage=textsearchresults&scChannel=Text%20Search&SearchText=shrub%20butterfly&OfferCode=T1H ( long address!) but its early in the season, I'll probably order more, tell me, are butterflies also attracted to fruit plants?

I'm growing a couple from seed, too, GT! You can probably find milkweed (asclepias) at some of your local nurseries. Ooh, you're lucky - Maryann lives in Connecticut, so she will be a big help in picking out host plants and nectar plants that the flutterbies love there! About the only one you could grow from seed right now is Asclepias curassavica, which you can sow direct, and the Monarchs love it. Someone here may have some extra seeds, I'm not sure.

Susan

Welcome to the forum, Greenthumb!
MissSherry

Greenthumb, welcome! You'll love it here! This is a great bunch of people from all over the country with so much accumulated knowledge and practical experience that you won't believe it!

And the pictures that get posted here are beautiful! It's a very active forum.

You will find that some of the plants that are good nectar plants for our southern members, don't work so good up here.

If your really into the butterfly thing may I suggest that you join the Connecticut Butterfly Association? They have several great field trips planned and send out a newsletter every so often. We also have a list server address where members post to a site and it's emailed to all the members. So I get email from people around the state reporting sightings and events.

It'd be especially good for you since a lot of the activities happen at the NH experiment station. And many field trips are much closer to you than me. I live near New London.

As far as butterflies being attracted to fruit plants?.. The only thing that comes to mind is that some early butterflies can nectar on native blueberry blossoms. I'm not sure about strawberry, apple or plum blossoms, but I don't think so.

You'll find that butterfly bush, zinnias, and verbena bonariensis are probably the top three nectar plants for our area.

Milkweeds are essential for monarch rearing, and athough plenty grows wild around here, I also plant the tropical A. Currasavicca because the monarchs seem to prefer it for egg laying.

Maryann

You should consider checking out Broken Arrow Nursery which is near you. A great butterflier named Andy Brand is there. He's very active in the CT butterfly Assoc.

Welcome, Green thumb. Looks like Maryann will get you hooked up with the right people.

Be sure to take some before and after pics, and post them here. We LOVE pics of everyone's gardens.

It's just so nice to see people meet each other that live in the same state and can help each other out! I don't know what I would have done without Linda, and now Elaine, Randy, and Lisa. This is just the bestest forum.

You're lucky, Green Thumb, too, because Maryann can really be a co-conspirator in butterflying in Connecticut! She's a great person, love her posts, and she gets some really good photos - some exceptional photos, I should say - of butterflies in Connecticut. We're looking forward to your experiences and photos, too, now!

Susan

susan, thank you so much for your lovely complements!

Greenthumb, we should start seeing some of the early species in CT soon. One is the Mourning Cloak, the other the Cabbage white. Both have been reported. Late June and early July are really our primo months and the early fall brings us Monarchs and migrant species.

Although last night when I left work I had some sleet accumulating on my car! Will our weather ever catch up to the rest of the country?

Boy, Maryann, you guys have really had it there in the NE! I keep reading reports of all the winter weather affecting you guys. I believe you deserve a bounty of butterflies this summer after all that nasty stuff!

We've been very lucky here this spring. We had a pretty bad winter for Oklahoma, too, sleet, ice, snow and cold, cold temps, but in February, it was like a veil was lifted and we've had nothing but really nice temps, lots of spring rain, and it's been a wonderful time here for the last 2 months.

Here's wishing you some warmth, sunshine, spring flowers, and butterflies!

Susan

When we moved into our house (in Maryland) three years ago, there was a nice batch of what I think is stonecrop growing. It seems to be bee and butterfly heaven. I'm new at this but was thrilled to see all the visitors! I need a better guide, but we had some sort of swallowtails and skippers, not sure what else. This summer I'll be standing out there with my camera!
I did get a great pic of a Mourning Cloak at my grandmother's in Southern Vermont last spring, though! Too exciting! I'll try to put the pic up on mypage but it wasn't cooperating a little bit ago..

Lynne in MD (zachsmom at iname dot com)