How to Plan a Butterfly Host Garden

Set the table for a butterfly host garden by supplying plenty of food for caterpillars. Does this Spark an idea?

Things You'll Need

  • Nursery Transplants
  • Fertilizers
  • Seeds
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Instructions

    • 1

      Do your homework. Read a book or do research online to find out about the different varieties of butterflies that visit or live in your area.

    • 2

      Learn what plants they eat in their larval stage; the caterpillars of a given species typically eat only a few or even just one type of plant.

    • 3

      Determine the growing requirements for those plants, such as when to plant, and their soil, sun, water and fertilizer needs.

    • 4

      Purchase the seeds or plants and grow them to encourage female butterflies to lay eggs on the plants that the growing caterpillars will eat. Examples of caterpillar-friendly plants include milkweed (asclepias) for monarchs; rue and the variously named hop-ash/potato-chip/wafer-ash tree for giant swallowtails; carrot, parsley, fennel and dill for black swallowtails; candlestick bush, a senna species, for cloudless sulfurs; compositae daisies for painted ladies; pipevines (aristolochia) for pipevine swallowtails; willow, cherry, peach and cottonwood trees for the tiger swallowtail.

    • 5

      Resolve that you won't be upset by a few weeks of damaged, even ravaged, foliage that will result as the caterpillars feed. Even organic controls can kill the caterpillars.

Tips & Warnings

  • If you don't know which butterflies visit or live in your area, check with lepidopterist societies, museums, garden clubs, universities, county extension services and wildlife preserves in your area.

  • Rue can cause a skin reaction. Situate it so that there won't be accidental contact.

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