It's a learning experience. In return, these six-legged beauties will do your plants a favor. Butterflies are good pollinators. The garden will also attract hummingbirds. A butterfly garden can be designed to fit any size space, and butterflies like such a wide variety of plants that you can design a garden to have flowers in bloom all season, she says.
Perennials are the mainstay, but annuals are added to the mix.
The flowers which butterflies favor are full-sun varieties, so at least six hours of sunlight are needed. Some examples are butterfly weed, purple coneflower, Joe-Pye weed, sedums, hollyhocks, lilies. The obedient offspring will usually stay on the host plant selected by their parents throughout the caterpillar stage of its life. Favored host plant varieties include dill, carrots, parsley or milkweed. They're easy to tuck away among the flowering varieties.