Flowers in the genus Solidago, known collectively as goldenrods, are a favorite nectar source for a variety of butterflies, including sulphurs, American snouts, red admirals, gorgone checkerspots, and viceroys.
Dogwood
Flowers of the dogwood tree attract spring azure and American snout butterflies. The leaves are also a host food for spring azure larva.
Poplar
Most often planted as a fast-growing shade tree, poplars are also a host food for white admiral, tiger swallowtail, mourning cloak, viceroy, and red-spotted purple butterfly larva.
Snapdragon
Plants of the genus Antirrhinum, collectively known as snapdragons, are host food for the larva of the common buckeye.
Purple Coneflower
Echinacea purpurea, the purple coneflower, is well-known for its immune-boosting and anti-depressant properties. It is also an attractant for the common wood-nymph butterfly.
Mustard
Not only great for harvesting its seeds and greens for culinary use, the mustard plant is also a favorite nectaring and host food for falcate orangetip butterflies and larva.
Passion Vine
Passiflora, also known as the passion vine, sports large, exotic purple flowers that will spice up any garden. The foliage is also a host food for gulf fritillary and zebra longwing caterpillars.
Sunflower
In addition to providing sunflower seeds for human consumption, these summertime favorites provide nectar and host food for most species of checkerspot butterflies and larva.
Viburnum
A popular landscaping shrub due to its pleasant fragrance, viburnum will also attract Baltimore checkerspots and spring azure butterflies to your garden.
Burdock
Traditionally cultivated for the medicinal properties of its root, burdock is a favorite host food for painted lady caterpillars.
Vetch
A flowering plant of the legume family, any of the over a hundred species of vetch will attract American painted ladies, sulphurs, and zabulon skippers, as both a nectaring and larva host food source.
Blueberry
These popular fruit-bearing bushes will bring both swallowtails and spring azure butterflies to your garden.
Black Walnut
Juglans nigera, the black walnut tree, is host food for over two hundred species of butterfly and moth larvae, including swallowtails, red-spotted purples, royal walnut moths, and the elusive and exotic luna moth!
Stonecrop
The name given to a variety of low-growing succulents, stonecrop is a favorite nectaring plant for the red admiral butterfly.
Privet
Finally, to create privacy in your butterfly garden, try surrounding the space with privet. The flowers of this hedge-forming shrub are a favorite for many butterflies, including skippers, painted ladies, swallowtails, and red-spotted purples.
Public Gardening
Longing for a garden but have no place for one? Take advantage of the variety of places that have gardens: zoos, public gardens and parks, cemeteries, college campuses, garden club tours, nurseries and garden centers, or a friend’s house. In many cities these days, there are also community gardens and gardening co-ops in which you can get your hands dirty. Call your parks and recreation department. (All of the above are also great places to get ideas if you do have a garden.)
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the
journey-work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and
a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
and the tree-toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for
the highest,
And the runny blackberry would
adorn the parlors of heaven
And the narrowest hinge in my hand
puts to scorn all machinery,
and the cow crunching with depress’d
head surpasses any statue,
and a mouse is miracle enough to
stagger sextillions of infidels
—Walt Whitman
With Family and Friends
All God’s pleasures are simple, the rapture of a May morning sunshine, the stream blue and green, kind words, benevolent acts, the glow of good humor.
—F. W. Robertson
Going Wild for Wildflowers
My mother is a naturalist at heart. She treasures wildflowers much more than the domesticated plants I adopted as a child. She would take me on wildflower walks and teach me the secret flora of meadow and wood. I learned to identify wild irises, jack-in-the-pulpit, Dutchman’s breeches, larkspur, lady’s slippers, and dozens of gorgeous and delicate specimens. I wondered at the difference between the small and seemingly rare wildflowers and the big and bold flowers that grew in our garden. The irises especially were in great contrast—wild irises were about four inches high and the irises I started from my aunt’s were over two feet tall.
One day I decided to surprise my mother by transplanting some of her treasured wild irises to a flower bed at home. She was pleased, but warned me that these delicate plants simply wouldn’t thrive outside their habitat. By the next spring, however, we had hearty clump of wild irises growing beside the shameless “flags” from Auntie’s house.
They tell us that plants are perishable, soulless creatures, that only man is immortal, but this, I think, is something that we know very nearly nothing about.
—John Muir
Bringing the Woods Home
There are a number of woodland flowers that will do well in any shaded and treed part of your yard with moist, well-drained, rich-in-humus soil (you can add your own peat moss if you need to). These include lily of the valley (my personal favorite), dog’s tooth violet, great trillium, red trillium, false Solomon’s seal, Virginia bluebells, and redwood sorrel. But beware—don’t go digging up plants in the woods: many, such as lady’s slipper and swamp pink, are endangered. Better to get them from a reputable (some suppliers of difficult-to-propagate plants are over-collecting from the wild) company such as Prairie Moon Nursery (send two dollars to Rt. 2, Box 163, Winona, MN 53987 for a catalog) or Underwood Shade Gardens (508-222-2164, four dollars for a catalog).
Each flower is a soul opening to nature.
—Gerard de Nerval
Spring Day Sachet
This craft is delightfully easy to make and is a sweet and thoughtful gift!
•½ yard lace
•1 dinner plate
•disappearing ink marker
•scissors
•1 cereal bowl
•tapestry needle
•2 yards ¼” wide ribbon
•2 ounces lavender or potpourri
•2 yards of inch-wide ribbon
Place the lace on a table and lay the dinner plate on top of it. Trace the edge of the plate with the disappearing ink marker. Remove the plate and cut around marker to make a circle of lace. Turn the cereal bowl upside down in the center of the lace circle and trace the edge. Remove bowl. Thread the tapestry