by R. Renee Bembry

Created on: May 16, 2010   Last Updated: February 28, 2011

Butterflies are so fascinating to watch that people immediately pause to see them whenever they appear over their yards. Most of the time, however, butterflies fly away nearly as quickly as they appear. When this happens, their hasty departures leave fascinated gardeners and other onlookers hungry to explore more butterfly wing flapping. Butterfly fans want to see close up views of butterfly wing patterns, lengthy antennas, and small little faces.

The problem is butterflies need certain types of plants to survive. In order to attract butterflies and keep them in their gardens, gardens must offer two kinds of plants. One type must provide nectar for "mature" butterflies and other kind must provide food for butterfly "larvae." When butterflies enter yards wherein gardens do not provide nectar-producing plants for adult butterflies or do not offer plants that sustain butterfly larval needs, butterflies must continue their journeys until they find gardens that grow plants needed to support both butterfly stages.

What this means is that gardeners wanting to capture the attention of butterflies in order to keep butterflies living in their gardens must grow plants that (1) attract butterflies and (2) nourish butterflies. For centuries, flowers and butterflies have worked together to ensure flowers are pollinated and butterflies are nourished through a process called “mutualism”. All gardeners need to do to create mutualism conditions in their yards is plant the right plants to instigate the butterfly-flower relationship.

Butterflies Help Plants Grow:

Attracting butterflies to gardens can be good for plants as well as for butterflies. While landing on plant after plant to consume nectar, butterflies, like honeybees, assist in transferring pollen from one flower to another. You could say that butterflies pay flowers for nectar - their primary food source - by pollinating flowers.

Butterfly Larvae May Annihilate Useful Plants

It is important to note that some plants that attract butterflies, and provide them resources to lay eggs, might be plants gardeners find useful. Butterflies need these plants just the same, however, because only certain types of plants possess the mix of nutrients hatching butterfly larvae need to survive.

Despite potential conflict, many gardeners who also have fascinations for butterflies do not avoid growing useful plants that attract butterflies, and in fact, gardeners willing to “sacrifice” a few useful plants

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