Garden Plan to Attract Butterflies

This guide features regional native plants for the Great Lakes that are highly attractive to butterflies.

These plants are well-suited to small-scale plantings in gardens, on business and school campuses, in urban greenspaces and farm field borders.

You can have a wonderful experience of intermingling butterflies and flowers by planting a butterfly garden. Here are some basic principles for attracting butterflies.

 Grow Lots of Nectar Plants

The main food of butterflies is nectar. As they gather nectar, they also inadvertently pollinate flowers. Be sure that your garden offers nectaring flowers throughout the blooming season.

  Mass Flowers

When planting flowers, group them together and then they will be more enticing to butterflies. Butterflies usually choose those that are more abundant.

 Choose a Sunny Location

This is extremely important for butterflies. Butterflies need the sun to keep their bodies warm. Butterflies are active only when the temperature is between 75 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

 Do NOT Use Pesticides

Pesticides are designed to kill insects. Since butterflies are insects, they are toxic to butterflies. So pesticides that rid your yard of insect pests will also kill your butterflies

Please see Host Versus Nectar Plants for a listing of both the caterplillar host plants and adult butterfly nectar plants for 14 butterflies common to Wisconsin.

Bloom	Common Name	Scientific Name	Color	Height	Light	Soil	Moisture
EARLY	Columbine	Aquilegia canadensis	Yellow, Red	3 feet		L,S	D,M
	Downy Phlox	Phlox pilosa	Pink	2 feet		L,S	D,M,O
	Purple Prairie Clover	Dalea purpurea	Purple	1-2 feet		C,L,S	D,M
MID	Smooth Phlox	Phlox glaberrima	Pink, Purple	4 feet		C,L,S	M,O
	Pale Purple Coneflower	Echinacea pallida	Purple	5 feet		C,L,S	D,M
	Sullivants' Milkweed	Asclepias sullivantii	Pink	5 feet		C,L	M
MID-LATE	Bergamot	Monarda fistulosa	Lavender, Blue	5 feet		C,L,S	D,M,O
	Butterflyweed	Asclepias tuberosa	Orange	3 feet		C,L	D,M
	Smooth Ironweed	Vernonia fasciculata	Red, Purple	6 feet		C,L,S	O
	Orange Coneflower	Echinacea fulgida	Yellow, Orange	4 feet		C,L	M
	Purple Prairie Clover	Dalea purpurea	Purple	2 feet		C,L,S	D,M
	Stiff Coreopsis	Coreopsis palmata	Yellow	3 feet		L,S	D,M
LATE	Crooked-Stem Aster	Aster prenanthoides	Blue, Lavender	3 feet		C,L,S	M,O
	Dense Blazing Star	Liatris spicata	Pink, Purple	6 feet		C,L,S	M,O
	Meadow Blazingstar	Liatris ligulistylis	Pink, Purple	5 feet		L	D,M,O
	New England Aster	Symphyotrichum novae-angliae	Purple, Pink, Blue	6 feet		C,L,S	M,O
	Ohio Goldenrod	Solidago ohioensis	Yellow	4 feet		C,L,S	M,O
	Prairie Dropseed	Sporobolus heterolepis	Straw, Gold	4 feet		C,L,S	M
	Sweet Joe Pye Weed	Eupatorium purpureum	Pink	6 feet		C,L,S	M
	Tall Joe Pye Weed	Eupatorium fistulosum	Pink, Purple	8 feet		C,L,S	M,O

SOIL:   L = Loam       C = Clay       S = Sandy       R = Rocky
MOISTURE:   D = Dry       M = Medium       O = Moist       W = Wet