Attracting Butterflies to Your Backyard, Schoolyard, Workplace, or Community Wildlife Habitat

The first step in attracting lively and colorful adult butterflies is planting flowers with nutritious nectar. The plants provide enticing food and, in return, are pollinated by visiting butterflies. Native plants are the best choice. Adults searching for nectar are attracted to red, yellow, orange, pink, or purple blossoms that are flat-topped or clustered and have short flower tubes. This allows the butterflies to reach the nectar with their tongues. Nectar-producing plants should be grown in sunny areas that are protected from strong winds. Butterflies need sun for orientation and to warm their wings for flight. Calm breezes allow them to fly freely.
Flat stones provide butterfly resting and basking areas. Male butterflies congregate near damp areas and shallow puddles to drink water and extract salts. It is important to avoid using herbicides and pesticides, as these will kill butterflies in both their adult and larval phases. The adult life span averages 6 to 20 days, with the range from a few days to over six months. In temperate regions of the country, various species are active from early spring until late fall, while some butterfly species in the south are active year-round. Butterflies need nectar throughout the adult phase of their life span, so be sure to plant for continuous bloom.

Nectar Plants:

Aster spp.
Azaleas (Rhododendron spp.)
Bergmots (Monarda spp.)
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
Blazing Stars (Liatris spp.)
Butterfly-weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis)
Cardinal-flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
Ceanothus spp.
Coreopsis spp.
Goldenrods (Solidago spp.)
Ironweed (Vernonia spp.)
Joe-pye-weeds (Eupatorium spp.)
Milkweeds (Asclepias spp.)
Phlox spp.
Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
Sumacs (Rhus spp.)
Sunflowers (Helianthus spp.)
Sweet Pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia)
Verbena spp.

Caterpillar Food Sources

In order to insure that butterflies reside in your yard, include host plants that serve as larval food. Butterflies almost invariably lay their eggs on the host plant preferred by the caterpillar. Do not panic when you see chewed foliage; usually no permanent damage is done to the plants. Some butterflies common to SC and their food plants are:

American Lady- cudweeds, everlasts, antennarias
Banded Hairstreak- oaks, hickory, walnut
Black Swallowtail- parsley, dill, fennel, Queen Anne's lace, common rue
Buckeye- ruellia, snapdragon, plantain, verbena, toadflax, monkeyflower
Cabbage White- many plants in mustard family and nasturtium
Checkered White- peppergrass, winter cress, bladderpods, tumble mustards
Checkered Skipper- mallows, sida, globe mallows, hollyhock, velvet-leaf
Clouded Sulphur- clovers
Common Sooty-wing- lamb�s quarters, amaranth tumbleweed
Common Wood-nymph-grasses
Coral Hairstreak- wild black cherry, American and Chickasaw plum, block chokeberry
Dogface- lead plant, indigo bush, prairie clover, false indigo
Dream Dusky Wing- willows, poplar, aspen, and birch
Dun Skipper- sedges, grasses including purpletop
Easter Tailed Blue- clover, trefoils, peas, vetches, alfalfa
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail- wild black cherry, ash, tulip tree, willow, sweetbay, basswood
Field Crescent- asters
Fiery Skipper- Bermuda grass, St. Augustine grass, bluegrass
Giant Swallowtail- prickly ash, citrus, common rue, hoptree, gas plant, torchwood
Gray Comma- gooseberry, azalea, elm
Gray Hairstreak- many pea and mallow family members, many others
Great Purple Hairstreak- mistletoe, Phoradendron flavescens
Great Spangled Fritillary- violets
Gulf Fritillary- maypops, other passion vines
Hackberry Butterfly- hackberry, sugarberry, Celtis spp.
Henry's Elfin- redbud, American, dahoon and yaupon hollies, maple-leaved viburnum, blueberries
Hoary Edge- tick trefoils, false indigo, lespedezas
Least Skipperling- grasses including cutgrass, bluegrass
Little Copper- sheep sorrel, curled dock
Little Wood Satyr- grasses including orchard grass, centipede grass and St. Augustine grass
Long-tailed Skipper- wisteria, pole beans, tick trefoil, butterfly pea, hog peanut
Monarch- milkweeds
Mourning Cloak- willows, American elm, quaking aspen, paper birch, hackberry
Painted Lady (Cosmopolite)- thistles, mallows, nievitas, yellow fiddleneck
Pearl Crescent- asters
Pipe-vine swallowtail- Dutchman�s pipe, wooly pipevine, Virginia snakeroot
Pygmy Blue- saltbush, lamb�s quarters, pigweed
Question Mark- elm, hackberry, nettles, hops
Red Admiral/ White Admiral- wild cherries, black oaks, aspens, yellow and black birch
Roadside Skipper- bluegrass, oats, Bermuda grass
Sachem- grasses, including Bermuda grass
Spring Azure- dogwoods, wild clack cherry, viburnums, staghorn, sumac, others
Sulphurs- clover, peas, vetch, alfalfa, asters, Cassia spp.
Sylvan Hairstreak- willows
Tawny Emperor- hackberry, sugarberry
Variegated Fritillary- passion flower, maypop, violets, stonecrop, purslane
Viceroy- willows, cottonwood, aspen
Woodland Skipper- grasses
Zebra- passion vines
Zebra Longwing Swallowtail- pawpaw

Butterfly Facts

• Over 700 species of butterflies are found in North America but very few are garden pests.
• Adult butterflies range in size from the half-inch Pygmy Blue found in southern California to the giant female Queen Alexandra's Birdwing of New Guinea, which measures about 10 inches from wing tip to wing tip.
• Butterfly larsi or "feet" possess a sense similar to taste - contact with sweet liquids such as nectar causes the tongue to uncoil.
• Millions of shingle-like, overlapping scales give butterfly wings their colors and patterns. Metallic, iridescent hues come from faceted scales that refract light, and solid colors are from pigmented scales.
• What is the difference between moths and butterflies? Moths are generally active at night, have a bulky body and drab coloration with cryptic wing patterns, and the caterpillar spins a cocoon for the transformation to the adult stage. Butterflies are generally active during the day, have a slender body and are brightly colored, and the caterpillar creates a chrysalis to transform into an adult.
• During the time from hatching to pupating (forming the pupa or chrysalis), the caterpillar may increase its body size more than 30,000 times.
• The chrysalides or pupae of many common gossamer wings--a group of butterflies that includes the hues, hairstreaks, and elfins--are capable of producing weak sounds. By flexing and rubbing together body segment membranes, sounds are generated which may frighten off small predators and parasites.

Information provided by the National Wildlife Federation's Butterfly Tip Sheet