Native plants to attract butterflies

[boogieman84]

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

[Johnny81]

Garlic mustard for orange tips to lay there eggs on, Brimstones and sometimes skippers are partial to field scabious in my garden and I tend to get blues on knapweeds now and then. Lavender and buddleja are great for my garden but not natives. Sure there are plenty of natives to plant just cant think of anymore as yet.

[Dorts]

Hemp Agrimony, Eupatorium Cannabinum.

Superb plant. A must for butterflies. (Butterflies are Peacock, Painted Lady, Red Admiral and Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary.)
Dorts.

[Johnny81]

Agree with Dorts with the hemp agrimony always great for insects! Have replanted some myself last month and have seeded!

[aeshna5]

I guess you'll have to think about larval food plants + nectar plants for adults.

With larval food plants you need to find out which butterfly species occur in your locality because if it's a species that occurs in discrete colonies you may have all the right plants but no realistic chance of attracting it. Also how much room do you have in the garden? I wouldn't bother growing Nettles in a small garden when it is generally such an abundant species + those butterflies that depend on it are pretty mobile species.

Garlic mustard + Cuckoo Flower are popular with Orange Tip + Green-veined White + occasionally using cottage crucifers such as Honesty or Dame's Violet (these are also good spring nectar plants). A small meadow area if you can support one may have some of the widespread skippers + browns breeding, while Bird's-foot Trefoil may attract Common Blues to breed ( as well as attractive moths such as burnet species).

For nectar plants any of the scabious, Marjoram, knapweeds+ some of the more attractive thistles. To be honest I wouldn't be purist in having just native plants as many exotics can be very effective in drawing in butterflies- I particularly like Verbena bonariensis which fits in well with a cottage style.

[Kayleigh]

You might want to think about the winter months too this thread might help you.

Butterfly nectar plants for the winter months

[Hedera]

Two or three teasels in the back of the border for the bees and then the birds in the winter. Collect your own seed head from the wild -they are biennial. Foxgloves also.

[Red Robin]

Originally Posted by Johnny81

Lavender and buddleja are great for my garden but not natives.

....I've heard Buddleja referred to as The Butterfly Tree. Mine certainly attracts them. But why is it important if Buddleja is native or not? Has it not become native?

[Dorts]

To answer Red Robin's question.
No, Buddleja davidii , the Butterfly-bush so familiar in our gardens and also along a great many of our roadsides, has not become native.
A native plant is one that has not been deliberately or inadvertantly introduced.
In Britain it is generally thought to be those plants that where on these islands when the English Channel was formed, anything that came later is not considered native, (although there has always debate on that point).
Buddleja is not native to any part of Europe, but is now such a part of our 'wild' landscape that I would happily have one in the 'wild' garden to attract butterflies.
Dorts.

[Red Robin]

Originally Posted by Dorts

A native plant is one that has not been deliberately or inadvertantly introduced.
In Britain it is generally thought to be those plants that where on these islands when the English Channel was formed, anything that came later is not considered native, (although there has always debate on that point).
Dorts.

....Crikey! There has been much evolution since the forming of The English Channel. I'm afraid that I think that such ideas are purely intellectual and academic.... and man-made in his bid to want to put everything in boxes and control Nature. Not my scene.

Natural evolution (and I include importation either by design or accidental) is the result of change and everything changes all the time. Go with the flow.

Sorry if this goes off the topic of butterfly plants but it's interesting.

Where do you draw the line (assuming you want to draw lines)? The example of valid and legal human migration of one particular race could easily turn into a group of people being considered as aliens because they're not 'native'. No difference in importance between humans and animals/plants in my world.