Garden Plants to attract Butterflies
A Selection of Nectar Plants that Feed Butterflies Around the Year
Nov 12, 2008
Butterflies dancing among the flowers of a herbaceous border, or gorging on the nectar of buddleia conjure perfect images of a summer’s day, and attracting them to your garden isn’t difficult. And even on the occasional sunny day in a British winter, hibernating adults of species such as the Brimstone and the Peacock may be tempted out to feed.
A butterfly’s primary needs are simple: warmth from the sun to generate the energy to fly, and a plentiful supply of butterfly food, normally nectar. Provide this and butterflies will flock to your garden.
This selection of nectar rich butterfly plants will provide a year-round food supply for butterflies.
Buddleia - the Butterfly Bush
Buddleia is the top favourite for most common British butterfly species, giving rise to its common name.
Hardy, easy to grow, sweetly scented and colourful, it’s a popular garden shrub in its own right, and different buddleia species will provide a succession of flowers and attract butterflies from May until October in most parts of Britain. Useful Buddleia species include:
- Buddleia globosa - May/June.
- Buddleia alternifolia - June/July.
- Buddleia davidii - July to October.
- Buddleia fallowiana - July to October.
Butterfly Flowers for Spring and Early Summer
- Blackberry blossom - particularly attractive to Blues and Skippers
- Flowering currant - ribes
- Forget-me-not
- Late flowering fragrant daffodils
- Mint flowers, especially apple mint
- White Alyssum
Butterfly Flowers for late Summer and Autumn
- Candytuft
- Heliotrope
- Lavender
- Rosemary
- Scabious
- Sedum spectabile 'Autumn Joy.' Other Sedums seem less attractive to butterflies
- Verbena
Butterfly Flowers for Winter
- Fragrant daffodils, especially varieties with short trumpets
- Lonicera fragrantissima
- Rosemary
- Viburnum bodnandense
- Viburnum tinus
Other Butterfly Plants and Foods
This is by no means an exhaustive list. It’s worth studying butterflies’ feeding habits and experimenting with new plants to add to your selection.
In general, butterflies find it difficult to get at the nectar in flowers with a long trumpet or corolla, or complex lipped flowers like snapdragons and will avoid them.
The most popular flowers usually have a mass of small miniature florets like a scabious or thistle head, or a central disc of miniature florets like a daisy.
But butterflies don’t only feed on nectar. The juice of overripe and rotting fruit is particularly popular with a number of species, like the Painted Lady and the Red Admiral. Fallen apples, pears and plums will often attract a large number of butterflies, which will eventually stagger away in an intoxicated state.
Contributing to Butterfly Conservation
Planting a good selection of nectar rich plants will certainly attract butterflies, but there are several other things you can do to improve the butterfly habitat in your garden and make your garden more butterfly friendly.
Finally, get the children interested in butterfly conservation with an easy butterfly raise and release holiday project.
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