The second challenge of butterfly gardening is to plan and plant the landscape for the purpose of raising butterflies from caterpillars. Raising butterflies from caterpillars in your garden often requires a major change of attitude. Caterpillars have chewing mouthparts and must eat plant foliage as their food source. Hungry caterpillars can consume a surprisingly large amount of foliage, and butterfly gardening requires that you stand back while worms are eating your plants. Such tolerance is not for everyone.
Caterpillars feed on foliage of trees, shrubs, flowers, vegetables, and weeds.
Some kinds of caterpillars are picky eaters that will eat only one kind of plant. The well-known monarch butterfly, for example , only grows where milkweeds are available. Other caterpillars can survive and grow on any of several different host plants. For example, the caterpillar of the attractive tigerswallowtail can be found on the foliage of cherry, ash, birch, cottonwood , willow, or lilac. Resources Raising butterflies in your garden requires you to learn which plants are necessary for the caterpillars of butterflies common in your area.