6 Plants that are irresistible to Butterflies
Six plants that attract butterflies. Learn how to attract butterflies and hummingbirds into your garden, what plants they like and how to get one to land on your plant.
This week, the most frequently asked question by garden center customers, friends, and family was how to attract more butterflies to your gardens. The reason butterflies love certain foods is that they are attracted to them by the right plants. Although butterflies can be attracted to readily available water sources, they are also attracted to gardens that have adequate irrigation. It all boils down to the right plants!
Although this list isn’t exhaustive, it will ensure that your landscape attracts more butterflies than you have now. They will be there if you plant them!
The Butterfly Bush is the perfect plant to attract these magnificent creatures to your garden. Many are now available at the garden centre in a variety of colors. Mountain dwarf varieties are more easily cared for and offer the same beauty to butterflies as the gardeners who planted them.
Butterfly Weed is a butterfly-attractive plant that produces clusters of yellow and scarlet-red flowers. This well-behaved, easy-to-care plant requires little maintenance and provides great landscape color. This beauty will make a great show on your patio or deck in a glazed container.
Whiteout Candytuft is a new variety of the old-fashioned candytuft. This popular plant is covered with pure white flowers, from the edges to the center, due to its dense branching and uniform flowering. It blooms from early spring to late summer. Plant them in large numbers and the butterflies will be attracted to you like magnets.
Once established, Bronze Carpet Stonecrop requires very little water. This gorgeous trailing succulent forms a dense, ground-hugging carpet with delicate pink flower stalks that rise above the bronze-red leaves. It’s a great contrast to gray- or green-leaved plants and can be used in borders, rock gardens, and containers.
For those who are afraid of roses, Easy Elegance Roses can be a great choice. Elegance roses bloom all year round, providing a variety of colors. You can have reliable, easy-to-care roses with a round, disease-resistant form and astonishingly clean foliage.
Miss Huff Lantana, the cold-hardiest lantana, has established clumps that can withstand temperatures as low at 0°F. The warm season is marked by the blooming of bright orange and pink flowers. It is a great choice for hot, sunny locations such as along hillsides or in containers on patios.
Mango Shoutoutr’s striking mango-orange flowers bloom all year. This plant is drought-tolerant and attracts butterflies and hummingbirds. It also adds stunning color to mixed and mass plantings.
These are the 6 best summer-blooming flowers for butterflies.