I have had tons of butterflies in southcentral Oklahoma (Love County) all summer, but I avoid spraying all pesticides, both organic and synthetic, because the butterflies seem to avoid areas near anything that has been sprayed with anything. I know that in some parts of Oklahoma, people have said they are not seeing as many butterflies as usual this year.

We are in a rural area and leave our native flowers blooming in the pasture until they've gone to seed so that the butterflies have many food sources throughout the summer. We also grow tons of flowers in our veggie garden for them---we have almost as many flowers as veggies and I generally plant flowers as edging/border plants in every single raised bed of veggies, plus we have a large perennial/annual flower border along the souther and western edges of the garden filled with many kinds of flowers for them. The huge butterfly, bee and hummingbird magnets at this time of the year in our garden are zinnias (old open-pollinated varieties seem preferred by the butterflies and bees over newer hybrids), tall verbena (verbena bonariensis), salvias, and all the herbs in bloom (lemon balm, catnip, borage, basil, tansy, silver tansy, comfrey, etc.). We also have a few night-blooming types of flowers (datura, four o'clocks, moonflower vines, nicotiana) for the moths.

While we are seeing a lot of different kinds of butterflies, the most common ones in our garden are various kinds of swallowtails, various kinds of sulphurs (our fields of cassia attract them but then they also venture into the garden to visit other plants too), bordered patch, pearl crescent, various kinds of fritillaries, an occasional viceroy, an occasional monarch, and various little blue ones. At night, we have many kinds of moths, including several different kinds of sphinx moths. I often see butterflies whose identities I do not know and don't have time to look up. This is most common in late July through late August when the butterfly population seems to peak.

Be sure you are providing wet spots for them to puddle because they need the minerals from the soil. I make butterfly puddles every morning.

Also, be sure you're raising your own plants from seeds. Many nursery-purchased plants are raised using systemic insecticides that are absorbed by/remain inside the plant and these can kill or repel butterflies and bees.

There's really not much you can do except make your habitat as appealing as possible and then hope they show up. You will see different population numbers each year. This year has been about typical here in southern OK but from what I am hearing about much of the rest of the state via FB, it appears there are less than normal numbers in much of the state. It happens, and it seems to be more closely related to the year's weather conditions than to anything else.

Dawn

Thanks, Dawn. You're lucky you have so many plants and butterflies. We have a few of the plants you mentioned, and I think Zinnia's is the only one grown from seed, and they don't get them either. Strangest thing I've ever not seen. lol.

I water some of the plants every morning and there are puddles, but they quickly drain. How do you keep your puddles from draining? I did make a toad bath just for the heck of it, and there is one sitting in it every morning. Do you have a lot of toads this year? I've never seen so many in my life!

Hopefully I can find more information on the lack of butterflies here. We had a perfect Spring, nothing unusual, and a typical summer.