Butterfly weed is a prolific bloomer that colors the garden from June through August with attractive orange flowers. It is a host plant for the Monarch butterfly larvae.
Create a colorful buffet of flowers, and they will come.
Butterflies are the perfect way to add more movement and color to your garden. Invite them into your yard by choosing plants from more than 400 native American species that provide nectar and shelter for them and their young.
For larger butterflies like Monarchs, flat-topped flowers such as coneflowers, daisies and zinnias will offer them a stable place to sit and sip nectar. All butterflies appreciate spikes of the closely-spaced small flowers of liatris or the round-topped flower clusters of yarrow -- and they all love the color purple!
Echinacea 'Sundown' Coneflower
The sunset-orange coneflower provides a treat for Black Swallowtails with its scented blooms.
Agastache 'Blue Fortune' Hyssop
Blue, tubular flowers attract Monarch butterflies in droves throughout the summer, as seen in the Lurie Garden in Millennium Park.
Asclepsias Tuberosa Butterfly Weed
This prolific bloomer colors the garden from June through August with attractive orange flowers. It is a host plant for the Monarch butterfly larvae.
Buddleia 'Bicolor' Butterfly Bush
A new variety that presents two colors on the same flower panicle--lavender with a touch of yellow. Tiger Swallowtails converge to sip on the nectar in these blooms.
Eupatorium 'Gateway' Joe-Pye Weed
Painted Lady butterflies love the mounds of pink-purple flowerheads of the Joe-Pye Weed. Black-purplish stems grow up to eight feet when given enough moisture.
Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' Black-eyed Susan
Yellow-gold flowers bloom abundantly in the garden and thrive as cut flowers, from July through September. Swallowtails love this one!
ECHINACEA, Coneflower LIATRIS, Blazing StarThe cheerful petals of the Coneflower combine well with the vertical Blazing Star to attract Monarchs and Swallowtail butterflies for your garden in midsummer.
