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Index : Landscaping Design
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- 2. Nectar Plants to Attract Butterflies - Top
- Fall is a great time for adding new plants to your garden and landscape. Some of the best choices are plants who’s flowers provide a favorite source of nectar for butterflies. Most adult butterflies feed on flower nectar. Some visit a variety of flowers and others seem to prefer a more specialized menu. Here are some favorite butterfly nectar plants well adapted to desert landscapes:
Pine-leaf Milkweed (Asclipias linaria) is a nectar source for a number of butterfly species. It’s most commonly visited by the Queen Butterfly, and orange and black species commonly mistaken for a Monarch (Monarch). Flowers are ivory white born in small clusters on the ends of spreading stems. The small needle-like evergreen leaves give the plants a wispy, fine textured appearance. Plants bloom from spring to fall and develop papery seed pods which split to disperse seeds with tufted silky hairs typical of milkweed species. In addition to providing a nectar source for butterflies, Pine-leaf Milkweed is also a food source for butterfly larvae.
Butterfly Mist (Ageratum corymbosum) is small, multi-stemmed shrub with misty blue to lavender flower clusters set above lush, light green foliage. It has a loose, open form and can be used in informal settings planted among other desert shrubs and ground covers. It also grows well in containers. Flowers are abundant from late spring to early fall and are a favorite nectar source for the male Queen Butterflies. This plant is cold sensitive and will freeze to the ground in the winter, but grows back rapidly in the spring.
Red Bird of Paradise (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) provides continuous bloom and nectar for butterflies from late spring through October. It is the brilliant orange flowering shrub that graces the medians and roadways in and around Tucson. Flower clusters are globular and more than 6 inches across, fiery orange in color with a tinge of gold on the edges. With their long orange stamen, these flowers are reminiscent of tropical birds, thus the name. Plants also are graced by bright green, feathery compound leaves that provide just the right contrasting background for the showy flowers. Red Birds attract Swallowtails, Sulphurs and Skipper butterflies.
Trailing Lantana (Lantana montevidensis) is an ideal nectar plant for all types of butterfly species. It’s extended flowering season, from spring to early winter, attracts year-round garden visitors such as the Painted Lady. As the name implies, plants spread over time to a width of 5 to 6 feet and a height of 2 feet. Lavender flowers cover the plant all season long. In cold spots, Lantana will freeze back, but regrows rapidly in the spring.
Other native and desert adapted landscape plants that provide nectar for butterflies include: Frog Fruit, Desert Senna, Yellow Lantana, Baja Fairy Duster, Mexican Sunflower, and Catclaw Acacia.
More information on nectar and larval plants for butterflies is available through a great publication entitled can be obtained through the Arizona Native Plant Society’s publication "Desert Butterfly Gardening" produced by the Arizona Native Plant Society and the Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute. Colored photos of butterflies and the plants that attract them are included. A comparative plant table lists native and desert adapted plants which provide larval and nectar food. A comparative butterfly table lists butterflies native to the Southwest along with their range, flight period and food plants.
Written by John Begeman, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the University of Arizona,
520-626-5161.
- Updated: October 15, 2006
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