Attract butterflies to your garden. Whether brilliant orange, yellow, blue, or even black, butterflies can rival any flower for breath-taking beauty. Butterflies are particularly attracted to purples, mauves and pink flowers.
1. Aster. A
great plant for the autumn garden, aster is a heavy bloomer with
colorful flowers in shades of blue, purple, pink, red, and
white.
2. Buddleia
(Butterfly bush). This shrub is called butterfly bush for a reason
- you're sure to see it covered in butterflies all summer long. An
easy-care shrub, it features fragrant flowers in shades of blue,
purple, and white.
3. Coreopsis. Bears little
yellow flowers over rich green, ferny foliage for much of the
summer.
4. Echinacea (Cone flower). A
wide range of butterflies love sipping coneflower nectar. The plant
is very heat and drought tolerant, it's a perfect cut flower, and
it blooms almost all summer long.
5. Eupatorium. Forms tall
flowers bearing big clusters of dusty-pink flowers that appear from
midsummer to autumn.
6. Lantana.
Lantana blooms all summer long in shades of lavender, pink, red,
orange, yellow, cream, and white. The versatile plant looks perfect
in containers or beds and borders.
7. Phlox.
Phlox bears beautiful clusters of red, pink, lavender, salmon, or
white blooms throughout the summer. Their lovely scent delights our
noses as much as their nectar delights hungry butterflies.
8. Rudbeckia (Black-eyed
Susan). Black-eyed Susan is a tough perennial, which blooms in late
summer with big, yellow, daisy-shaped flowers.
9. Salvia.
There's a salvia for every garden: some are tall, others are short.
Some have blue or purple blooms, and others have red, orange, or
pink flowers. While you might have trouble picking a salvia, the
butterflies love them all.
10. Zinnia. Just
about everyone loves zinnia, which is why it's a favorite of
butterfly gardeners, cottage gardeners, and beginner gardeners. It
blooms in an almost endless range of colors and looks great right
through the summer months.