Butterflies are attracted to plants and flowers for a variety of reasons. Some serve as hosts for breeding and feeding caterpillars. Attracting butterflies to your garden is an art.
In a garden, flowers are not only natural but also serve biodiversity. Many of us love to see butterflies twirling in our backyards. These majestic insects, beautiful and graceful, delight gardeners for their function as pollinators.
Attracting butterflies to your garden is easy if you have the right flowers. Today, in this article, we are going to discover the most stunning flowers that attract butterflies to your garden:
* Butterfly Garden Flowers
* Coneflower
* Lantana
* Heliotrope
* Lavender
* Butterflies in the garden
* Tips to care far butterflies
Butterfly Garden Flowers
The Buddleia is not named ‘Butterfly Tree’ by chance. It attracts butterflies en masse from July to September. Appreciated for its bright flowers, it grows in most gardens without much maintenance.
Milkweed is divided into several species and varieties that irresistibly attract butterflies (Danaus plexippus). They are the favored food source for the larvae. Many small flowers, with various shades of orange, pink, white, or purple, can decorate flower beds all summer long.
Sedum spectabile is an ideal plant in flowerbeds exposed to full sunlight with a wide range of colors, depending on the variety. It brings butterflies at the end of the season, from August to October.
The hollyhock blooms for most of the summer and attracts the Hesperides and the grey tails. Graphically, plant it in well-drained soil, along a facade. Additionally, valerian is a melliferous plant with beautiful bunches of pink or white flowers.
Coneflower
From July to October, Echinacea, or coneflowers, offer a long flowering period with large, solitary, purple-pink flowers with a copper-brown heart in the shape of a conical disc 3 to 8 cm long. These 5 to 12 cm long flowers can be cut to form beautiful bouquets, appreciated by florists.
The flowers carry green stems stained with red. The deciduous leaves are dark green and 4 to 15 cm long. Echinacea can grow up to 1 m high.
The plant is melliferous, which makes the happiest of butterflies. Rudbeckia can be found in perennial beds and within grasses. This medicinal plant is useful against colds and flu.
Echinacea appreciates sunny or slightly shady exposure. Plant it in reasonably poor, well-drained soil. Nevertheless, it accepts any ground. It is a hardy plant that tolerates drought, heat, and humidity. Echinacea does not like to be disturbed. Thus, avoid moving it.
Lantana
Lantana is a small, bushy shrub that blooms for a long time in shades of bright yellow-orange, pink, or mauve. The flower is capable of flowering almost all year round in a very mild climate.
Lantana Camara, the most common species, produces various cultivars with shades that are easy to match in any garden. From the orange lantana to the yellow or pink lantana and the creeping lantana, they provide a colorful and original decoration from summer to autumn, in beds or pots.
Most of the time, you can plant the Lantana in the open ground in hot climates. It only tolerates light frosts. Everywhere else, it is grown as an annual or as a plant in large pots or planters. The Lantana requires little watering and only needs full sun to grow. The flower is resistant to summer drought and some varieties can withstand short frosts.
Heliotrope
The Heliotrope arborescent ‘Marine’ is a beautiful perennial that is very cold, always grown as a summer annual, for its umbel blossoms of silvery-blue flowers with a vanilla scent.
Also known as ‘Saint Fiacre’s herb,’ this 60cm tall plant forms a well-branched bush, with 3 to 8 cm long, oval, embossed leaves, with a wrinkled appearance, rough to the touch, of a very dark green color.
Melliferous, the small flowers, in shades of silvery blue, are arranged in large irregular inflorescences, 15 cm in diameter, which perfume the evenings of a heatwave, with a pleasant scent of vanilla.
Native to South America, the Peruvian Heliotrope, ‘Menos,’ grows in fresh, humus-rich, well-drained soil in warm, sunny conditions. Place it close to the house to enjoy its heady fragrance.
Heliotropium arborescens harmonizes perfectly with yellow flowers and silver foliage in summer beds or pots.
Lavender
Lavender, Lavandula, in Latin, with its aromatic silvery foliage and blue spikes of flowers, immediately evokes the sun of the South. Lavender offers a wide range of shades as mauve, lilac, white, or pink. The flowers give off a sweet and unforgettable scent in the garden and perfumery.
The benefits of lavender are multiple and well known in aromatherapy, particularly in the form of essential oils. Lavender combines therapeutic, soothing, and antiseptic properties.
Despite its Mediterranean origins, this elegant shrub can tolerate the cold quite well (down to -15 to -20 degrees C). Rustic and frugal, you can plant it in full sun in a very draining and stony soil.
All in elegant sobriety, from April to October, depending on the variety, the tufts of lavender bring a colorful and fragrant smell in all gardens in perennial beds, borders, rock gardens, and seaside, in low flowered hedges and even in pots on a south-facing terrace.
Butterflies in the Garden
Butterflies play an essential role in pollination. As they visit each flower in search of nectar, they cover themselves with pollen, which they disseminate as they move from flower to flower. Therefore, they ensure fruit-forming and fruit plants.
Butterflies and caterpillars have a bad reputation because they devour the leaves. However, if there are too many of them in the garden, and they cause significant damage, the birds in the garden can soon regulate the population!
Tips to Care for Butterflies
To plant a safe garden for butterflies, we advise you to apply the following tips:
* Plant flowers rich in nectar, in the sun (for more sugar), with staggered flowerings to provide flowers throughout the season. Choose simple shapes to double shapes.
* The flowers that are most popular with butterflies include fennel, sedums, rudbeckias, common oregano, speedwell, and the butterfly tree.
* Butterflies are particularly attracted to the flowers of lantana and shrub sage.
Butterflies, bees, and other pollinators are indispensable in the garden. They allow the fruiting of individual plants, especially fruit trees, and shrubs. Whether you have a beehive or not, plant honey-bearing species to provide them with nectar and ensure the pollination of your fruit trees and vegetables. And butterflies remain a unique spectacle to watch! Attract them to your garden with the best honey flowers and plants.