Things You'll Need:
- Nursery Transplants
- Fertilizers
- Seeds
- Seeds
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Step 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.
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Step 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.
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Step 3
Determine the growing requirements for those plants, such as when to plant, and their soil, sun, water and fertilizer needs.
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Step 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.
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Step 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.
