Butterflies are always looking for nectar, so if you can provide the tastiest meal, you can keep them around!
Grow Your Own Butterfly Garden
Butterflies and flowers were made for each other. As a French poet once pointed out, 鈥淏utterflies are flying flowers, and flowers are tethered butterflies.鈥 Here is our list of the best plants that attract butterflies to the garden, with their respective common and Latin names, along with some advice on how to grow them.
In attracting butterflies, it鈥檚 important to understand what they want most out of life: nectar. The ancients, who believed that nectar fell directly from heaven, named it after the wines of the gods.
Keeping Your Garden Butterfly-Friendly
To attract butterflies to your garden, it鈥檚 best to include a range of food sources. You鈥檒l need flowers with 1) nectar (for adults) as well as 2) 鈥渉ost鈥 plants for caterpillars.
Now if you want to keep butterflies in your yard (and support these declining pollinators), you must have those host plants where they can lay their eggs (some butterfly species are fussier than others as to what plants are best); once the larvae hatch, the host plants will serve as food for the developing caterpillars.
A butterfly鈥檚 wish list also includes sunny, open spaces, shelter from the wind, and fresh water.
- Just placing some flat stones around your yard and garden gives a place for butterflies to 鈥渟unbathe鈥 so that they can rest and warm their wings for flying.
- A bird bath or even a shallow basin can provide water. In nature, butterflies often gather around mud puddles to get the minerals they need. As the water evaporates, it leaves behind valuable salts and minerals that butterflies need. Some garden stores even sell pudding stones.
Plants That Attract Butterflies
Native plant varieties are best; some butterflies can only eat from native flowers. When building a butterfly garden, or really any pollinator garden, native varieties are far more effective.
For caterpillars, consider plants like milkweed, dill, and asters. Monarch caterpillars ONLY eat milkweed. In fact, the monarch butterfly is also known as the 鈥渕ilkweed butterfly.鈥
For butterflies, Joe-Pye weed, ironweed, coneflowers, goldenrod, and brightly-hued asters are nectar-filled favorites.
Plants to Attract Butterflies
Different plants can attract different species of butterflies! See our full list of flower and fruit varieties to consider adding to your garden. You may consider some of these plants 鈥渨eeds,鈥 but the butterflies love them.
| Common Name | Latin Name |
|---|---|
| Allium | Allium |
| Aromatic Aster | Symphyotrichum oblongifolium |
| Bee balm | Monarda |
| Black Cherry | Prunus serotina |
| Blue Wild Indigo | Baptisia australis |
| Blueberry bushes | Vaccinium corymbosum, Vaccomoium angustifolium |
| Buttonbush | Cephalanthus occidentalis |
| Butterfly bush* | Buddleia |
| Catmint | Nepeta |
| Clove Pink | Dianthus |
| Cornflower | Centaurea |
| Daylily | Hemerocallis |
| Dill | Anethum |
| False indigo | Baptisia |
| Fleabane | Erigeron |
| Floss flower | Ageratum |
| Globe thistle | Echinops |
| Goldenrod | Solidago |
| Grey Dogwood | Cornus racemosa |
| Helen鈥檚 flower | Helenium |
| Hollyhock | Alcea |
| Hoptree | Ptelea trifoliata |
| Joe-Pye weeds | Eupatoriadelphus fistulosus, Eupatoriadelphus maculates, Eupatorium purpureum |
| Lavender | Lavendula |
| Lilac | Syringa |
| Lupine | Lupinus |
| Lychnis | Lychnis |
| Mallow | Malva |
| Milkweed | Asclepias tuberosa |
| Mint | Mentha |
| New York Ironweed | Vernonia noveboracensis |
| Ninebark | Physocarpus opulifolius |
| Northern Spicebush | Lindera benzoin |
| Pansy | Viola |
| Phlox | Phlox |
| Pipevine | Aristolochia macrophylla |
| Privet | Ligustrum |
| Purple coneflower | Echinacea |
| Rock cress | Arabis |
| Sage | Salvia |
| Sea holly | Eryngium |
| Senna, American | Senna hebacarpa |
| Senna, Maryland | Senna marilandica |
| Shasta daisy | Chrysanthemum sp. |
| Snapdragon | Antirrhinum |
| Stonecrop | Sedum |
| Sweet alyssum | Lobularia |
| Sweet rocket | Hesperis |
| Tickseed | Coreopsis |
| Tuliptree | Liriodendron tulipifera |
| Trumpet Vine | Campsis radicans |
| Zinnia | Zinnia |
*Butterfly bush is categorized as an invasive plant in many states and is not used as a host plant for caterpillars.
Please let us know if we鈥檙e missing any of your favorite butterfly plants! Just comment below.
Related Pollinator Articles
- Learn more about Butterfly Gardening from our 蜜桃恋人 organic gardener.
- For more plant recommendations, see Plants that Attract Hummingbirds and Easy Ways to Attract Bees to Your Garden.
- Plus, check out Native Bees: The Best Pollinators for Your Garden!
Catherine Boeckmann
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My Lantana bushes attract many butterflies in spring, summer, and into fall. Easy to care for and look pretty.
Yes, all butterflies seem to love lantana.
When the monarch butterflies arrive in my area (Yarmouth, Nova Scotia) they are most attracted to the verbena bonariensis. They feed there and move to the milkweed to lay eggs. These are a self-sowing annual and occasional perennial in my zone 6B garden and bloom from early summer until winter...a beautiful and beneficial addition to any garden!
Honeysuckle came to mind immediately because of its nectar. Any thoughts?
I already have quite a few butterfly host plants, but now I'm attempting to design my butterfly garden by bloom succession, so that I will have butterfly friendly plants blooming from early spring through the fall, for the butterflies to feed on... Any suggestions?
Thank you,
Hi Luis,
That’s a great question! The best way to find flowers that bloom at specific times is to search using your local cooperative extension (/content/cooperative-extension-services), which will give you a list of plants based on your region and gardening zone. But a few good ones that will attract butterflies are anything from the allium family, which will bloom from between early spring to mid summer (depending on the variety), purple coneflower (blooms early to mid summer), anything in the mint family (blooms usually in early summer), black-eyed susan (blooms early to late summer), lupin (blooms early summer), sage (blooms early to mid summer), and zinnias (blooms late summer to ealry fall). Again, these bloom times will be slightly (or drastically) different depending on your region, so use the cooperative extension network to get some more specific information. We hope this helps!
The plant that attracts the most butterflies and bees in our garden in southern VA is cosmos. In our area, cosmos begin blooming in early September and continue till frost. It is the place to be even over many other butterfly favorite flowers. It provides food late in the season when many other flowers are spent. The bees love it so much that they will sleep on the plant over night and are slow to wake up in the morning (particularly when the nights and mornings are cool). Cosmos love dry poor soil so do not fertilize or over water them. Because our variety grows 6 feet tall, we plant it next to a tall fence and occasionally, we have to tie them up. The blooms are a brilliant orange. They are an annual but reseed profusely.
My husband and I have enjoyed watching Monarchs, Zebra Heliconians, Black Swallowtails and Eastern TIger Swallowtails enjoying the nectar from our flowering Ligustrum trees. The bees love them too and the fragrance is delightful! We moved to our new home near Tampa last July, so this is our first spring and what a nice surprise! We鈥檇 planted milkweed, which the Monarchs love, along with Sweet Almond Bush (yummy fragrance) and other pollinator enticing flowers and shrubs, but the mature Ligustrum trees were already here. Little did we know that they would be such a butterfly and bee magnet!
Hi does anyone have a recommendation of a plant that help the butterflies but may be deer resistant? none of these seem to mention this fact.
we are in north east PA with many deer
Thanks!
Hi, I live in the state of Washington, and I was wondering which ones on your list could attract the most butterflies in my area.
