Butterfly Garden Guide: Which Plants to Grow and How to Start One

A shovelful of soil is the first instrument. Ohio’s Division of Wildlife tells gardeners to dig one and look at it before shopping, because some plants thrive in wet ground and others only in the driest soil. Butterfly garden plants come in two sets: nectar flowers for the adults and host plants for the caterpillars, and the second set is the one most beds leave out. The rest of the design is sun, shelter from wind, a damp patch of ground and the decision never to spray.

More than 765 butterfly species live in North America north of Mexico, according to UF/IFAS Extension, and no garden attracts all of them. A garden draws the species that already fly within reach, so the planting list starts with the region, not with a catalog. Working out how to make a butterfly garden is mostly working out which of those local species to feed.

What a butterfly garden runs on: nectar plants and host plants

Adult butterflies need sugar, and most of it comes from flower nectar. The North American Butterfly Association describes the two plant types any butterfly garden needs: nectar plants that give adults energy, and caterpillar food plants. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adds sun, cover and water to make five components in all, in a leaflet from Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida.

Nectar plants are forgiving. Adults visit a wide range of flowers, though not at random: UF/IFAS Extension notes that small butterflies tend to feed at small flowers and large ones at larger blossoms, and that species differ in color preference and tongue length. A mix of flower shapes and colors therefore serves more species than a bed of one showy annual. Hybrids are a weak point. A University of Kentucky extension horticulturist warns that many hybrid flowers are sterile or carry far less nectar than the plants they were bred from.

Some adults barely use flowers at all. The Xerces Society points out that the mourning cloak takes sugar from rotting fruit and from sap leaking out of damaged trees, and a plate of overripe peaches or bananas will draw it in.

Host plants are where the garden becomes a nursery. They are the plants a female butterfly lays eggs on and that her caterpillars eat, and they are picky in a way nectar plants never are. Without them, the adults pass through.

Host plants for butterflies, and why the chewed leaves are the point

Every caterpillar species has a short menu. The monarch caterpillar eats only milkweed; the black swallowtail eats parsley, dill, fennel and close relatives, as Colorado State University Extension notes. Females search for those plants specifically, so a yard that carries the right host plants for butterflies is found by the butterflies that need them.

UF/IFAS Extension makes the practical case: nectar plants invite butterflies in, host plants give them a reason to stay and reproduce, and adults tend to remain close to the places where their larval food grows. Its advice on the side effect is just as direct. Host plants are meant to be eaten. Leaves will be ragged, some plants will be stripped, and that means the garden is producing butterflies. Most plants recover, and the caterpillars will not move on to the rest of the landscape.

The Xerces Society suggests a sensible order: first grow host plants for the common butterflies already flying through the property, then branch out. Its general list of host plant groups is a useful map of the possibilities. Milkweeds feed the monarch, violets feed the fritillaries, and native grasses feed many skippers. Trees carry more than most gardeners expect. Ohio’s Division of Wildlife states that hickory leaves support up to 200 different species of caterpillars, and the same booklet lists black cherry as a host for the spring azure.

Planting several of each host plant matters. Ohio’s guide reminds gardeners that caterpillars are voracious and that the supply should be watched and topped up through the season.

A region-by-region guide to butterfly garden plants

The butterfly garden plants and pairings below are taken from state agencies, extension services and regional plant societies. They are starting points, not complete lists, and in each case the source covers far more species than a single page can hold.

Northeast and Midwest

Ohio’s Division of Wildlife, which records more than 140 butterfly species in the state, lists the host plants for its common garden visitors. The eastern tiger swallowtail uses woody plants including sassafras, spicebush, ash, tulip tree and black cherry. The spicebush swallowtail uses spicebush, sassafras and other members of the laurel family. Black swallowtails take native honewort as well as fennel and dill. Pearl crescents lay on asters, great spangled fritillaries on violets, and the red admiral on wood nettle, stinging nettle and Pennsylvania pellitory. For the monarch, the same guide names common milkweed, swamp milkweed and butterfly-weed among up to 13 milkweed species found in Ohio.

The University of Kentucky’s entomology fact sheet adds a few: violets for the great spangled fritillary, snapdragon for the common buckeye, and willow, poplar and apple for the viceroy.

Nettles deserve a word. Ohio’s guide concedes they are not a popular choice and suggests leaving them where they already grow, since the red admiral depends on them.

Southeast and Florida

Florida carries more than 180 verified butterfly species, the highest count of any state east of the Mississippi River, according to UF/IFAS Extension. Its gardening publication lists hosts species by species: the zebra swallowtail on pawpaw, the spicebush swallowtail on bays, sassafras and spicebush, the black swallowtail on fennel, parsley and mock bishopsweed, and the gulf fritillary on purple passionflower and corkystem passionflower. Cloudless sulphurs use partridge pea, sensitive pea and sennas. For monarchs and queens it names pineland milkweed, white swamp milkweed and pink swamp milkweed, with butterfly weed also listed for the monarch.

The Fish and Wildlife Service leaflet from Pelican Island, where more than 30 butterfly species have been recorded, lists the zebra longwing (Florida’s state butterfly) on corkystem passionflower and maypop, and recommends Florida natives for nectar: blanketflower, dotted horsemint, dune sunflower, firebush, goldenrod and scorpiontail.

Texas and the South Central states

The Native Plant Society of Texas singles out two perennials that draw butterflies in summer and fall, blue mistflower and Gregg’s mistflower, and names drought-tolerant nectar shrubs including agarita, cenizo, flame acanthus, kidneywood and the native lantana (Lantana urticoides). Its vines for butterflies are coral honeysuckle, white honeysuckle, crossvine and passionflower. Monarchs and queens lay on native milkweeds such as antelope-horns, which the society notes is hard to find in nurseries; butterfly weed is easier to buy. The Monarch Joint Venture’s South Central list adds green antelopehorn and zizotes milkweed.

Rocky Mountains and the Plains

Colorado State University Extension’s table of common eastern Colorado butterflies is unusually specific. Mourning cloaks feed as caterpillars on willow, aspen, cottonwood and elm. The western tiger swallowtail uses willow, cottonwood and chokecherry; the two-tailed swallowtail, green ash and chokecherry. Painted ladies use thistle, hollyhock and sunflower, the checkered skipper uses mallow and hollyhock, and the Edwards fritillary uses Nuttall’s violet. Rabbitbrush turns up again and again in the nectar column. The same fact sheet notes that Canada, musk and bull thistle are listed by the Colorado Department of Agriculture for removal as noxious weeds, so any thistle grown for butterflies needs to be a species the state does not list.

California and the Pacific coast

UC Marin Master Gardeners list cottonwood, willow, ash and sycamore for the western tiger swallowtail; dill, parsley and fennel for the anise swallowtail; California pipevine for the pipevine swallowtail; oaks for the California sister, golden hairstreak and mournful duskywing; passionvine for the gulf fritillary; and snapdragon, mimulus, penstemon and plantain for the common buckeye. Painted ladies use thistles, pearly everlasting and fiddleneck. For monarchs, the preferred milkweeds there are narrow-leaf (Asclepias fascicularis) and showy milkweed (A. speciosa).

Separate species notes in this section deal with individual butterflies by state.

Milkweed and monarchs

Monarchs cannot complete their life cycle without milkweed, and the Monarch Joint Venture is blunt that females lay eggs only on milkweed plants. Its fact sheet divides the country into six milkweed regions and highlights species that monarchs use and that establish easily.

Region	Milkweeds highlighted by the Monarch Joint Venture
Northeast	Common (A. syriaca), swamp (A. incarnata), butterfly weed (A. tuberosa), whorled (A. verticillata), poke (A. exaltata)
Southeast	Butterfly weed, whorled, white (A. variegata), aquatic (A. perennis), sandhill/pinewoods (A. humistrata, parts of Florida)
South Central	Green antelopehorn (A. viridis), antelopehorns (A. asperula), zizotes (A. oenotheroides)
Western	Showy (A. speciosa), narrow-leaf (A. fascicularis)
California	Narrow-leaf, showy, desert (A. erosa), California (A. californica), heartleaf (A. cordifolia), woolly (A. vestita), woolly pod (A. eriocarpa)
Arizona	Butterfly weed, antelopehorns, rush (A. subulata), Arizona (A. angustifolia)

The fact sheet asks for plants grown as close as possible to where they will be planted, from the closest seed source, and for county-native species in larger restoration projects. The Xerces Society runs a look-up for native monarch plants by ZIP code at plantsformonarchs.org.

The tropical milkweed problem

Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is not native to the US. In parts of the southern states and California it stays green through winter, which lets monarchs keep breeding through the cold months. The Monarch Joint Venture says those year-round patches foster higher transmission of Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE), a protozoan parasite, and cites research by Satterfield and colleagues (2015) showing higher infection in monarchs breeding on tropical milkweed through the winter. Native milkweeds die back seasonally and leave clean habitat in spring.

The recommendation is specific: in those warm areas, cut tropical milkweed back to within 6 inches of the ground from October to February, unless it dies back on its own, and replace it gradually with native species. Ohio’s guide puts it more simply. Don’t plant it there at all, when native milkweeds are available.

A stranger trap involves plants that are not milkweeds at all. The Monarch Joint Venture warns about black swallow-wort and pale swallow-wort, European members of the milkweed family; research by Casagrande and Dacey (2007) found monarchs will lay eggs on black swallow-wort even beside common milkweed, yet the caterpillars cannot survive on it. A native relative, sandvine (Cynanchum laeve), is a genuine monarch host, which is why identification matters before pulling anything.

Hardiness zones: what the USDA map measures

The 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard for judging whether a perennial will survive winter where it is planted. It is based on the average annual extreme minimum winter temperature, shown as 10-degree Fahrenheit zones and 5-degree half zones, calculated over 1991 to 2020 from 13,625 weather stations. Across much of the country it runs about a quarter zone warmer than the 2012 map.

Two cautions come from the USDA itself. Because the map averages the single coldest night of each year, zone changes between editions are not reliable evidence of climate trends, and some shifts come from better data and interpolation rather than weather. And the finer grid now shows local effects: cities can sit a zone warmer than the surrounding countryside, and hilltops colder than valleys.

For a butterfly garden, the map is a filter, not a recommendation. It removes plants that would freeze. It measures only winter cold, so summer heat, drought and soil sit outside it, which is why a plant rated for the zone can still fail, and why native plants from the local region usually outperform anything chosen on the zone number alone.

Sun, shelter, puddles and basking stones

Butterflies are cold-blooded and need warmth to fly. NABA recommends a site with at least six hours of direct sunlight a day, and the Xerces Society asks for an open, sunny area protected from wind by large shrubs, a hedgerow or a fence. Colorado State University Extension makes the same point for the Front Range, where high winds are common.

Flat rocks finish the job. The Fish and Wildlife Service suggests a couple of flat stones in direct sun, and the Xerces Society notes that large flat rocks soak up heat and give adults a place to warm up; a Kentucky extension horticulturist adds that morning warmth is what gets them foraging.

Cover is the other half. Shrubs and trees give butterflies somewhere to hide from predators and weather, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the University of Kentucky recommends leaving partly shady areas for cooling and for cloudy days.

Water is less about drinking than minerals. Colorado State University Extension describes “mud-puddle clubs” of butterflies, mostly males, on moist sand or mud, probably taking up dissolved minerals, and suggests keeping a damp, slightly salty area. Ohio’s guide notes that male great spangled fritillaries gather at puddles for mineral salts. A shallow bowl of wet sand works (the Fish and Wildlife Service version), as does a dish of pebbles half covered with water, or a bucket buried to the rim and filled with sand or gravel, the University of Kentucky’s permanent option. Ohio’s Division of Wildlife adds a useful detail: untreated tap water is fine, because chlorine dissipates into the air within 24 hours.

How to make a butterfly garden: site, layout and planting time

Ohio’s Division of Wildlife describes how to make a butterfly garden in plain stages, starting in winter on paper. Draw the yard, if you can to scale on graph paper, with its existing trees, shrubs, slopes and patios; note sun, shade, wind, drainage and access to water; then choose plants that fit each spot.

Layout

Tall plants go in the middle or back of the bed, low ground covers at the edges, and the bed should not be packed too densely, since perennials spread. Grouping matters more than variety in a single spot. The University of Kentucky notes that butterflies find groups of the same plant more easily than single flowers, NABA adds that clumps shorten the distance a feeding butterfly travels, and the Fish and Wildlife Service suggests grouping flowers of like color. Height variety helps too: Kentucky’s extension notes that tiger swallowtails come to tall Joe-Pye weed and New England aster, while least skippers prefer low plants such as lavender and dianthus.

A Kentucky extension horticulturist advises mixing host plants in among the nectar plants, which improves the chance of seeing generations of butterflies rather than passing visitors. If you have only a small bed, a vine on an arbor adds height without taking ground, an idea from the Ohio guide.

Butterfly gardens rarely stand alone in a yard. The same border can sit beside the hummingbird feeders, a row of nest boxes on the fence line or a purple martin house on its pole in the open, each placed for its own needs; the martin housing plans and the rest of the habitat guides treat those separately.

When to plant

Fall planting has strong support. The National Wildlife Federation calls it the best time for native wildflowers, shrubs, trees and grasses: the soil is still warm, cooler air reduces water loss through the leaves, and weeds are slowing down. University of Georgia Extension advises finishing at least four to six weeks before the first hard frost, and points out that many native wildflowers, including several milkweeds, need winter cold to germinate. The NWF adds that milkweed planted in fall is ready to host monarchs during their spring migration.

Spring is the other common planting season. Either way, patience is part of the plan: Ohio’s guide warns that many perennials won’t bloom in their first year.

Bloom succession from spring to frost

A butterfly garden needs flowers from the first warm days to the last. The Monarch Joint Venture asks for early, middle and late blooming species with overlapping flowering times, and the National Wildlife Federation sets a simple floor of at least three nectar plants across spring, summer and fall.

Ohio’s booklet works as a model calendar for the East and Midwest. In spring it lists wild columbine, golden Alexanders and wild geranium, which flowers April through May. Summer brings common milkweed, purple coneflower, bee balm and dense blazing star. Late in the season come blue vervain, which blooms from midsummer into early autumn, white wood aster in late summer and early fall, and the native asters that feed migrating monarchs and painted ladies. Fall nectar has a second job: for butterflies that hibernate as adults, aster nectar builds the carbohydrate stores they need to survive the winter.

Colorado State University Extension makes the point for summer, when flower visits peak, and recommends a large patch of one flower species to attract and hold butterflies.

The hummingbird overlap is real. UF/IFAS Extension observes that most butterfly gardens also draw hummingbirds, and the Ohio guide notes columbine and bee balm as hummingbird plants; the bird feeder guide covers sugar-water feeders for the same visitors.

Small spaces and containers

A butterfly garden does not need acres. UF/IFAS Extension notes that a few key plants can have a large effect and that the same principles apply whether the garden is a patio container or several acres; Ohio’s Division of Wildlife says containers can supply both nectar and caterpillar food.

A Maryland horticulturist answering through Ask Extension recommended railing boxes of sweet alyssum and a herb container, since flowering herbs draw pollinators and parsley hosts swallowtail caterpillars. The same answer lists coneflowers, anise hyssop, milkweed, bee balm and asters as strong pollinator plants. On a sunny balcony, parsley, dill and fennel together make a small swallowtail nursery, and a deep pot of a regional milkweed covers the monarch.

That horticulturist named shade as the limiting factor on a balcony hemmed in by railings and trees. The light decides more than the pot size.

Pesticides and the nursery question

The agency and extension sources agree on this. The Fish and Wildlife Service leaflet says not to use pesticides in or near a butterfly garden; the Monarch Joint Venture says insecticides should never be used in or around pollinator habitat. Caterpillars are insects, and most garden insecticides kill them, while Colorado State University Extension adds that adults can die from resting on treated surfaces.

Organic products are not a safe exception. The University of Kentucky warns that neem oil and insecticidal soap can kill butterflies or disrupt mating and feeding, and Ohio’s Division of Wildlife notes that pesticides can come already present in purchased seeds, plants or soil, even labeled organic.

That makes the nursery a risk point. UF/IFAS Extension warns that many nurseries treat plants with pesticides deadly to larvae and advises asking before buying host plants. A milkweed that kills the first caterpillar to eat it is worse than none.

Butterfly garden kits and planted gardens

A search for a butterfly garden kit turns up a different product from a garden. These kits are for raising butterflies from caterpillars indoors, and as a classroom lesson in metamorphosis a butterfly garden kit is effective.

It does not plant anything. A kit adds no nectar flowers and no host plants for butterflies to a yard, and the butterflies it produces come from a breeder, not from the neighborhood. Release is where the debate sits. A statement by NABA’s president and leading lepidopterists, including a Smithsonian curator, argues against releasing commercially raised butterflies: they can carry disease and parasites into wild populations, and insects bred far away can mix with genetically distinct local populations. The statement notes that interstate shipment of live butterflies requires a USDA permit, and suggests that schools keep commercially obtained butterflies within the school.

The judgement here is simple. A kit is a good way to watch a life cycle; a planted bed is the way to support butterflies. Anyone using a kit should follow the supplier’s release instructions and local rules.

State butterfly checklists

Searches for butterflies of Idaho, Vermont, Minnesota, New Mexico and Maine are usually looking for a species list, and each state has a different kind of source. A list of what flies in a state is the starting point for choosing host plants and nectar plants.

• Idaho. Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) keeps a regional page for Idaho with a species checklist and photographs. The site covers butterflies and moths together, so the checklist is longer than a butterfly list alone.
• Vermont. The Vermont Center for Ecostudies publishes the Checklist of the Butterflies of Vermont, which lists 120 species in 5 families: 106 native (two of them extirpated), 10 vagrant and 4 introduced. It comes from the Vermont Butterfly Atlas, whose first round ran from 2002 to 2007, with a second round now under way.
• Minnesota. BAMONA’s Minnesota page offers a species checklist, photographs and a data explorer for sightings. It also counts moths.
• New Mexico. BAMONA’s New Mexico page offers a checklist organized by taxonomy. For the south of the state, Carl Lieb of the University of Texas at El Paso wrote a checklist of Chihuahuan Desert butterflies that covers a six-county region including Luna, Doña Ana and Otero Counties, lists about 198 species and emphasizes larval host plants.
• Maine. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife runs the Maine Butterfly Survey, started in 2007 to fill information gaps on distribution, flight seasons and habitat relationships. The agency says the state has over 120 butterfly species.

These lists answer different questions. An atlas such as Vermont’s records where and when each species was found, while a BAMONA checklist is built from submitted sightings and changes as people add records. Any of them can be set beside the regional planting lists above.

Butterfly species profiles

The profiles below cover individual species by common and Latin name, with range, host plants and what a gardener within that range can realistically do. Several are not garden butterflies at all, and the pages say so.

• Persius Duskywing (Erynnis persius), a lupine and wild indigo feeder of the West and North
• Lustrous Copper (Lycaena cupreus), a small copper of the high western mountains
• Moss’ Elfin (Callophrys mossii), a stonecrop feeder of rocky outcrops, canyons and cliffs
• Gorgone Checkerspot (Chlosyne gorgone), a sunflower-family feeder of the central and eastern states
• Rockslide Checkerspot (Chlosyne whitneyi), a butterfly of western rock outcrops
• Pine Satyr (Paramacera allyni), a satyr of high-elevation pine forest in Arizona and Mexico
• Florida Purplewing (Eunica tatila), a tropical butterfly that strays north of Florida
• Scarce Bamboo Page (Philaethria dido), a rare stray to South Texas
• Henry’s Elfin (Callophrys henrici), an early-spring hairstreak of the eastern states
• Eastern Pine Elfin (Callophrys niphon), a pine-feeding hairstreak of the East and North
• Long-winged Greenstreak (Cyanophrys longula), a Mexican hairstreak with only stray US reports

Another garden insect with a housing question has its own page: do ladybug houses work sets out what extension services report about ladybug houses and where ladybugs actually overwinter.

Leave the stems standing

Most adult butterflies live short lives; Ohio’s Division of Wildlife says few last more than 7 to 10 days. The exceptions are the overwintering species, including monarchs, mourning cloaks and question marks, which may live up to 12 months. Depending on the species, butterflies spend winter as eggs, caterpillars, chrysalides or adults, on plants, under leaf litter, under loose bark or in piles of logs.

A tidy fall cleanup throws much of that away. The Xerces Society suggests clearing only the leaves and debris that must go, two or three weeks before hard cold, and piling logs or leaves at the edge of the yard. Ohio’s guide asks gardeners to leave dead stems through the winter and to wait in spring, since many insects are still in diapause, and to prune with care where a chrysalis hangs from a branch. When the stems finally come down, it suggests tossing them on the compost pile, or tying them in bundles and leaning them against a tree, so whatever is still sleeping inside can climb out on its own schedule.