Many butterfly feeding and breeding grounds have been destroyed because of pesticides and the construction of housing and shopping centers. So creating a butterfly garden will not only attract these beautiful winged creatures to your yard, but can help them flourish again.

Butterflies are easy to attract; you just have to know what they like to eat. Caterpillars eat "larval" plants like milkweed, marigolds, Queen Anne’s lace, and violets. Butterflies like "nectar" plants, like the butterfly bush, the beauty bush, sunflowers, lilacs, snapdragons, and zinnias.

Select plants that are diverse in color and bloom at different times, so you will attract butterflies all summer long. Check with a nursery to see what plants will grow well in your area, and understand that different plants attract different butterflies and caterpillars.

Be sure the area receives five to six hours of sun a day and is sheltered from the wind. Also, a mud puddle in a sunny spot will provide butterflies with other essential salts and nutrients.

Watching these flying flowers flit around your garden is delightful. And the satisfaction of preserving a species by providing a safe habitat is immeasurable.

Butterfly Food Requirements
from Dead Daisies Make Me Crazy 
by Loren Nancarrow and Janet Hogan Taylor

Rather than the chewing mouthparts of immature caterpillars, adult butterflies have sucking mouthparts. The mouthparts are shaped into a long coiled tube, called a proboscis. The adult butterfly can uncoil its proboscis and use it to suck up nectar or tree sap. Plants that adult butterflies use for food are called nectar plants.

Caterpillars or larvae use their chewing mouthparts to eat the leaves and stems of plants, called host plants. Some larvae, like the gypsy moth that feed in great numbers, can completely defoliaste a mature host plant in a matter of days.

Many butterflies have very specific food requirements. Often the host plant for the caterpillar isn’t the same nectar plant for the adult butterfly of the same species. To be a successful butterfly gardener you must provide both the host and nectar plants that the butterfly species in your area prefer to eat.

The lists below give some examples of common host plants for caterpillars and nectar plants for butterflies throughout the United States. Ask your local nursery staff which ones are best suited for your area and climate.

Common Host Plants for Caterpillars:

Common Nectar Plants for Butterflies:

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