How to Attract Butterflies to Your Garden

Attract butterflies to your garden, and real life may start seeming more like fantasy. You can draw these colorful creatures to your home simply by planting the right flowers and shrubs. Here's how to attract butterflies to your garden:

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. 
    

   Get a few butterfly houses. These protect the little winged wonders from hungry birds and bad weather. Most are made from attractive wood. Then set overripe fruit, molasses, fruit juice, and beer outside in small containers. You can even hide them in your garden.

2. 
    

   Plan your garden carefully. Butterflies love marigolds, impatiens, zinnias, hollyhocks, heliotrope, bright red bee balm, and butterfly weed. They prefer herbs like borage, dill, fennel, and chives. Wisteria and snakeroot are also effective lures. Brighter is better for butterflies!

3. 
    

   Keep in mind that butterflies will lay eggs in your garden, and caterpillars will hatch from those eggs. Both like to snack on vegetables like cabbage and celery. They can endanger your home-grown produce! Vegetable gardeners should be extra cautious.

Tips & Warnings

• Plant your flowers in bunches - not singles.
• Butterflies are attracted to the brightest colors.
• Both drooping and ruffled flowers bother butterflies.

Resources

• In the Time of the Butterflies
• Peterson First Guide to Butterflies and Moths
• Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies
• The Dangerous World of Butterflies: Criminals and Conservationists