Flowers for butterflies

[Susie]

As some of you will know I have been a bit of a plant addict and have continuously tried new flowers in an attempt to encourage butterflies into the garden. I have to admit now that I shouldn't have bothered. For the varst majority of plants I have are pretty useless with maybe just the odd visit. Nine times out of ten it will be one of the following plants which has been visited:-

Vebena bonariensis
Buddleia
Sweet Rocket
Honesty
Garlic Mustard
Perennial Wallflower "Bowles Mauve"
Hemp Agrimony

And the following two purely as larval food plants rather than nectar:


Nasturtium
Alder Buckthorn.

I could have saved a fortune if someone had told me this.

[Kayleigh]

My Buddleia is packed with whites, painted ladies and peacocks the Lavender has the odd white and the Nasturtium have large white butterfly eggs on them.

I grow plants now I like and if the insects like them too its a bonus..

[colincurry]

Have you tried teazels?

Colin

[Schmoo]

Hi

My Liatris has recently come into flower and that has brought lots of peacocks and whites visiting for nectar (Its a very pretty plant with tall pink, fluffy flowers which open top to bottom and self seeds all over the place!)

[ron1863]

I have lots of different plants in the garden Susie and the ones that attract the most insects are the Clover flowers in the grass

[Cheryl]

Buddleias for me too plus Hebe as well - it's very popular with flies, bees, hoverflies and butterflies too - one of mine has had commas, painted ladies, peacocks, whites on it - not sure what varient this particular plant is but is quite large with long pink flowers fading to white at their base - think I've grown it from a cutting.

[col188]

Add to the list
Trailing lobelia in hanging baskets, Scabious and Honeysuckles get quite a few visitors.

Light purple Buddleia was full of Large & Small Whites, Tortoiseshells, Painted lady, Comma and Wood browns, quite a sight, must have been 20-30 at one time.
So many that they attracted the attention of Sparrows, but that didn't deter them for long.

Col

[Susie]

Oh yes, there are lots of other flowers which get visited but nowhere near the amount that the flowers I mentioned above are.

Scabious are quite good, I have six different types, including sheeps bit, devils bit, and field as well as some more ornamental types and there are all sorts of other flowers that get the odd visit but not in significant numbers. The knapweeds are good too.

Clover gets the odd butterfly visit (including brown hairstreak) but tends to be more of a favourite with the bees - my excuse for not mowing so much and letting it grow long.

[NickCantle]

Scabious are excellent for Skippers

[Jez]

I now have a mass of marjoram with knautia macedona, small scabious and pioneering ox eye daisies growing in between along 1 border and yesterday, nice hot day it was I had speckled wood, gatekeepers, meadow browns, comma, whites & red admiral, that was just for starters, a mass of honey bees, bumble bees, red tails and quite a few different types of hover fly all scrambling around getting a good fill. The buddleia too was visited by whites and red admirals also. But certainly the marjoram was getting the most attention! Garlic mustard and honesty in Spring are visited by orange tips. Though to be honest I'm not too happy with my garden atm and wish to cut back a lot of lychnis firecracker and yellow loosestrife which has gone rampant and add dames violet, soapwort and add more thyme only I can get the time to do so!