Create a butterfly garden

Want to attract butterflies to your garden? All it takes is a little effort and the right plants. Coralville-based Forever Green Landscaping and Garden Center offers these tips to create your own butterfly garden.

Food

The first step is to provide a food source. Larger butterflies tend to feed from plants with large open flowers they can reach without damaging their wings.

To allow feeding up high, hang baskets of flowers for them to eat from. Plant a variety of flowers that will bloom all season, and plant nectar sources in groupings - the butterflies can see them better if there is a mass of color.

Host plants

Butterflies need host plants to lay eggs on and provide a food source for caterpillars. Plant host plants in groupings to provide protection for the eggs and caterpillars. You also can create a pile of branches to hide their chrysalis in.

For host plants, monarchs like asclepias and milkweed; painted ladies like pussytoes, hollyhocks, mallow and globe thistle; black swallowtails like anise, rue, carrots, dill, parsley and yarrow; buckeyes like snapdragon and plantain; fritillaries like violets, passion flower vine and plantain; red admirals like nettle or false nettle; and sulfurs like peas, clover, alfalfa and vetches.

Environment

Butterflies like water, especially splashing or a mist. They also like protection from strong winds and rocks to warm themselves.

Perennials Butterflies like:

Aquilegia, columbine, asters, cimicufuga, bugbane, echinacea, coneflower, leucanthemem, Shasta daisy, monarda, phlox, scabiosa, pincushion flower, achillea, yarrow, agastache, hyssop, baptisia, false indigo, coreopsis, tickseed, gaillardia, blanket-flower, liatris, gay-feather, nepeta, catmint, physostegia, obedient plant, sedum, stonecrop, alcea, hollyhock, asclepias, milkweed, buddleia butterfly bush, delphinium, lavendula, lavender, lobelia, cardinal flower, penstemon, beard-tongue, rudbeckia, black-eyed Susan