How to Attact Butterflies to Your Garden

[Rick]

I love to have butterflies in my garden. I don't care to have moths because the caterpillars can be destructive especially to broccoli and lettuce. But butterflies are always welcome. Here are some plants that you can add to your garden to attract them.

Aubretia
Honesty (Silver Dollars)
Petunias
Lavender
Buddleia
Asters (I've sometimes found 20 butterflies on a single Aster plant.
Cabbages

I'm sure all of you are aware of the Butterfly Bush. The only thing I have against them is they can become very large and take over a good portion of a small garden.

[crashdive123]

We do the butterfly hummingbird gardens. Hours of entertainment. If you want Monarch Butterfly's add milk weed. The catepillars devour the leaves pretty quickly once the eggs are laid. You can take a cutting of the milk weed that has a couple of catepillars on it and place it in a jar. The process is pretty neat to watch. (never new catepillars could poop that much)

[Rick]

They love mints as well. But plant the mint in a container. It's incredibly invasive.

You guys probably already have the hummers down there. Ruby Throats generally land up here mid April so sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll have to put the feeders out!! Yippey!! Spring!!

[crashdive123]

I really get a kick out of the hummers. I'll be working in the yard and they'll be fighting over a bush (very territorial) and one will come right up to me - within a few inches of my face to investigate. Sure am glad my nose isn't red.

[Rick]

I have a mother and son that have been back two years in a row. She is very cordial of the son and both feed on the same feeders until it's time to fatten up for the flight south. Then it's every hummer for themselves. I've had fourteen here at one time and it looks like a WWII dog fight sometimes.

I have five feeders out and you can usually find a couple or three camped out near them just waiting.

I use a 1/3 cup sugar and the rest tap water for my feeds. No coloring and no boiling. I clean the feeders once a week with a mild clorox water and then rinsed thoroughly. Each year we get more and more.

[crashdive123]

We've got a few feeders out, but mostly plants. We've used sugar water and the pre packaged mixes. Both seem to work pretty good. Change them out about every 3 days because of the high temps. Had one feeder that was emptied every couple of days. Couldn't figure it out since we never saw hummers around that one....until one day watched a squirrel leap from a tree limb and do a balancing act on top of the sheppards hook it was hanging from. He just kept swatting at it, spilling out all of the liquid.

[Rick]

I get bees or yellow jackets late in the summer. They usually just pick on one feeder and I let them have it. Keeps them occupied. I can see why you have to clean so often. Bacteria would grow pretty easily down there.

We have a bunch of squirrels here as well. Big fat foxes. We've had young ones now for about four years so we have several generations running around.

[Aurelius95]

Wear a red hat and go stand in the yard- see what happens. Feels like they're dive-bombing you! My mother-in-law has several hummingbird feeders, and it's quite entertaining to watch.

[Rick]

I've been in the yard before with something bright colored on my shirt and they'll come right up to you. If you stand still and don't move they will examine the color to see if it's a flower then fly away. That's just really cool when it happens.

They are also quite beneficial to your garden. They eat tons of insects.