Nectar plants give butterfly gardens a powerful boost. But they’re not the only key to drawing pretty pollinators to your yard. As your favorite winged beauties transition through their life cycle, many lay eggs on the undersides of specific plants—hosts. Many people know monarchs need milkweed, but there are many other butterfly host plants you should consider adding to your garden. By incorporating some of these, you’ll attract a wider variety of butterflies to your backyard. And now they just might stick around!
Passionflower is a perfect butterfly-friendly vine. It climbs 15 to 50 feet and will thrive in full sun or part shade. If you’re starting this beauty from seed or small nursery plants, be prepared to provide support for its tendrils to cling and wind. After that, you won’t need to put in much effort to enjoy the blooms of this climber.
Butterfly benefits: Several fritillary caterpillars mow down on passionflower. A couple of common ones are the gulf fritillary and the variegated fritillary. Zebra longwings also use this butterfly host plant.
Buy It: Passionflower at Burpee.com
If you want to make an impact in your garden, this tall host plant is an easy choice. It comes in many colors, attracts an array of insects and can reach up to 8 feet in height. Plant hollyhocks in full sun and along a fence or wall for stability.
Butterfly benefits: Painted lady caterpillars rely on several different plants as food sources, including hollyhocks and various spring annuals.
Buy It: Hollyhock at Burpee.com
Salix, Zones 2 to 9 It’s true! Caterpillars feed on trees as well as pretty garden plants. Willows are known to grow up to 100 feet depending on species. So most gardeners will want smaller willows, like Dappled or Flame willow, which are a better size for backyard landscapes. Willow trees prefer full sun and tolerate many soil types.
Butterfly benefits: Several caterpillars like to munch on willow trees, including viceroy, western tiger swallowtail and mourning cloak.
Buy It: Willow at Burpee.com
Generally grown for its culinary uses, dill is also an unconventionally attractive garden plant with its feathery, aromatic green leaves and yellow buds. For an herb plant, dill gets quite large, reaching up to 4 feet tall.
Butterfly benefits: If you’re looking to snip some dill for use in your own kitchen, you’ve got to get your hands on it before the black swallowtails chow it down. Anise swallowtails and other caterpillars like dill as well.
Buy It: Dill at Burpee.com
In spring, long bloom clusters appear in a stunning display on the branches of chokecherry trees. Later in the season, the tree produces berries perfect for birds to munch on. This tree grows about 30 feet tall, so be sure to leave plenty of space for this beauty to mature.
Butterfly benefits: A western species, the two-tailed swallowtail caterpillar enjoys feeding on the foliage of the chokecherry tree.
Mostly grown as an annual or a short-lived perennial in Zones 5 to 9, snapdragons are great for adding height to a landscape. These garden classics’ stalks can reach about 4 feet tall with blooms in a variety of colors: white, pink, purple, orange or red.
Butterfly benefits: Look for common buckeye caterpillars snacking away on your snapdragons. They’re fun butterflies to have in your yard because they’re easily identifiable by bold, colorful eyespots.
Buy It: Snapdragon at Burpee.com
Try this pretty option if you’ve got partial shade. Perennial violets bloom in spring and prefer partial shade. Annual violas actually prefer full sun but will thrive in cooler temperatures of partial shade. They’re dainty plants with a maximum height of only about 6 inches.
Butterfly benefits: Violets are the host plants for the widespread great spangled fritillary, as well as western fritillaries like Mormon, callippe and zerene.
Buy It: Violets at Burpee.com
You may know oak trees by the fantastic orange, red and yellow color show they put on every autumn. Mature oaks can reach up to 100 feet high, but you can find smaller varieties, such as pin oak, that grow to about 75 feet—still quite large. So keep in mind that even smaller varieties need plenty of space to grow and flourish.
Butterfly benefits: Young oak leaves are favorites of the caterpillars of Horace’s duskywing and banded hairstreak.
Maybe you’re more familiar with this plant by the common name pearly everlasting, but its beauty is the same no matter what you call it. Blooming from midsummer to early fall, this plant boasts small, flat-topped clumps of white flowers reaching about 2 feet tall.
Butterfly benefits: American lady butterflies can be found throughout most of the United States, so plant everlasting to feed those hungry caterpillars.
This easygoing and versatile grass is a good choice for wet conditions, drought or partial shade, as long as it’s planted in moist, well-draining soil. Growing narrow and upright with a cloud of seed heads in fall, switchgrass can reach more than 5 feet tall. Birds enjoy the seeds while the green leaves turn to yellow in fall.
Butterfly benefits: Many skipper caterpillars need grasses like switchgrass as a food source. These same caterpillars might overwinter on or underneath the blades of grass.
- More From Birds & Blooms
12 Flowering Shrubs That Attract Butterflies
9 Butterfly Flowers to Grow From Seed
8 Super Fragrant Flowers That Pollinators Love
Top 10 Plants For Swallowtails
Long-Blooming Flowers for Attracting Butterflies & HummingbirdsPassionflower (Passiflora), Zones 5 to 9
Hollyhock (Alcea rosea), Zones 2 to 10
Willow (Salix), Zones 2 to 9
Dill (Anethum graveolens), annual
Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), Zones 2 to 6
Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus), annual
Violet (Viola), Zones 3 to 10
Oak (Quercus), Zones 3 to 10
Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea), Zones 3 to 8
Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), Zones 4 to 9
Donna Swan says
Beware when planting Passion Flower. It is so invasive. It grows over top every other plant even 8ft. away. I had to finally pull all the plants up. I may have to apply weed killer to kill it.
Marian says
Same thing with Lilies of the Valley.
JUDY MCINTIRE says
yes am finding that out! have to keep it cut back
Papa says
You must live in the South. The plant is not invasive in zone 6.
Daniel says
Your – Top 10 Butterfly Host Plants – photographs, are all, very, very, beautiful. You are a master writer and photographer. I love all your nature photographs…….My heart feels the love and beauty, in all your photographs….
Linda Andrews says
Oak leaves do not turn orange, red, and yellow in the fall. It’s the sugar maples that do that. Oak leaves just turn brown.
Alice says
Depends on the species of oak tree. For example, red oak leaves are a red/orange/yellow mix.
Kacy says
While I am opposed to the federal government providing loans, loan guarantees or any other loan ascitsanse,I think it is important to pin the tail on the right donkey and most of the people are blaming the president the real culprit is the congress which authorized the program and appropriated the funding.
S. Gunderson says
Shut up
call-search.com says
Having a record of what you read is a great thing-imagine some bloggers may well one day be able to look back on 50 year old book blogs and see what they read long ago and marvel at their reaction to the works
robin bickford says
I found out this summer that the swallowtail caterpillars like dill. I am quite happy to share with them and hope they will like my dill again next year. I’ve been growing dill for years and never saw the caterpillars before this year.