Flowers for Butterflies

Our flowers are even more beautiful when they attract butterflies, the flying flowers. Adult butterflies visit flowers in spring and summer to sip nectar, which provides hydration and some nourishment while butterflies pursue love and lay eggs on their children’s hostplants. And in the fall, migrating butterflies such as Monarchs, Painted Ladies and Cloudless Sulphurs need nectar as the fuel to get them to their winter destination. But flowers don’t produce nectar to feed butterflies or bees; nectar is a necessary bribe.

Understanding Pollination: The Love Connection

Plants need love too! They have boy parts and girl parts that must get together to form seeds. Since plants can’t go looking for love, they have enlisted pollinators to carry a male pollen grain, “plant sperm”, from one flower to a female ovum of another flower of the same species. Pollinators such as bees, butterflies and beetles don’t know that they are the love connection for plants, so the flower must first attract them with color, fragrance and/or shape. They then bribe the pollinators to return by repeatedly dispensing small doses of nectar.

Which Flowers Attract Butterflies?

Butterflies look for flat flowers that function as landing platforms to alight, balance themselves in the wind, and then “taste” with the chemical receptors on their feet. Asters, Coneflowers, Zinnias and Mexican Sunflowers form ideal landing strips. The quality and quantity of nectar is far more important than a particular color or whether the plant is a native. Pollinator research has demonstrated that some hybrids and varieties have superior nectar compared to their native species! However, choosing natives and heirloom flowers is the safest choice if you don’t have access to research on a specific plant. Because butterflies cruise your yard from March to November, you need a variety of flowers, blooming to span the nine months. And, flowers are most beckoning when they are planted together in large masses for the near-sighted butterflies to see.

Flowers to Avoid

Butterflies attend so many different species of flowers that it is easier to note which flowers they avoid than to provide long lists of attractive flowers. First, be very cautious about hybrids, which are bred for humongous blossoms on dwarfed plants. Fertility is a frequent casualty, which means that flowers like Knock-out Roses and tetraploid “French” Marigolds have no nectar to attract pollinators. Some fertile flowers such as members of the Carrot Family, do not have nectar because their pollinator strategy focuses on pollen feeders or carrion feeders like beetles, flies and ants. These too are useless to butterflies. Some of our most beautiful and fragrant flowers are physically incompatible with butterflies’ relatively short tongues. The nectar of large tubular flowers like Lilies, Angel’s Trumpets (Datura) and Moon Flower (Ipomeas) is inaccessible unless you have a 10-inch tongue like the Hummingbird Moth.

Beware of Poisoning Pollinators!

Your plants have specifically invited insects to serve their need for pollination. If you use insecticides, you thwart your plants’ love lives! Even organic insecticides kill insects. The only difference between organic and synthetic insecticides is that the organics are derived from natural sources like chrysanthemums while synthetics are manufactured from pure chemicals. They are equally deadly to insects. The nectar and pollen of plants containing systemic insecticides (Neonicotinoids) will poison your bees and butterflies. Unfortunately, plants sold at big box stores and large nurseries may have been treated with systemics, so you need to ask. In my experience, locally owned nurseries that don’t use any insecticides are the best source for flowering plants.

A Giant Swallowtail nectaring on our native Common Milkweed, which is also a Monarch hostplant.

A Great Spangled Fritillary nectaring on Profusion Zinnia, a high-nectar hybrid.

Summary

You will attract the largest number and variety of butterflies by following these simple guidelines: • Provide hostplants for the cat-

erpillars of the butterflies you wish to see. • NO insecticides! Do not invite patrons to your garden and then poison them!! • Sun-drenched garden: both butterflies and nectar-rich flowers are sun lovers. • Provide a variety of high nectar flowers from late-March through mid-November. • Arrange the flowers in large masses to be seen by passing butterflies.

LENORA LARSON Butterfly Maven

A Marais des Cygnes Master Gardener, Lenora is a member of the Idalia Butterfly Society and Kansas Native Plant Society. She gardens in the clay soil and cruel winds of Paola, KS. She may be contacted at lenora.longlips@gmail.com.