Such plants attract and support pollinators and help restore our ecosystems to a more diverse, healthy balance. A bonus, he adds, is that some native herbs can also be used as seasoning or made into tea. That s not an easy question to answer, given all of the country s different climatic conditions. But some herbs do flourish from coast to coast. Consider milkweeds, for instance.
Milkweeds also produce large clusters of flowers.
Joe-pye weed, another plant butterflies and bees love, makes an elegant backdrop for your garden. Growing from about 2 to 8 feet tall, the plant is named after Joe Pye, a Native American medicine man who hawked the herb in the late 1700s as a cure for ailments. Purple coneflowers of the genus Echinacea are widely used today by people seeking relief from the common cold. Coneflowers typically have beautiful flowers filled with sweet nectar that butterflies and bees cannot resist. Birds especially goldfinches love the taste of the plants seeds.