How to attract butterflies to your yard

Q: We would like to make a butterfly garden to attract all kinds of butterflies, especially the monarch. Please give us ideas as to the plants that would be attractive to them and any other things we should do to attract them.

A: I had a professor who specialized in butterfly gardens. He always said if an area is enticing to young boys, you would have a great butterfly garden. It starts with a mud puddle (not deep enough to be a pond) and rotting fruit. These are the two most attractive items to provide. Butterflies need water, not clean pools but mud puddles, with a few flat rocks sticking up above the water. The rocks provide landing pads and also heat on cool mornings. Butterflies also are attracted to the smell of rotting fruit, especially bananas, apples and even berries.

There are plants that are attractive for raising the butterfly larvae and other plants that provide nectar to adults. The plants to attract the hungry larvae include asters (crecentspots and checkerspots), blueberry (brown elfins), borage (painted ladies), cherry (tiger swallowtails, two-tailed swallowtails, white clover (orange sulfurs), Indian corn (clouded skippers), dogwood (spring azure), hollyhocks (painted ladies and skippers), hop vine (question marks and red admiral), Indian Paintbrush (Paintbrush checkerspots), marigolds (dwarf yellows), milkweed (for monarchs), nasturtium (cabbage white), Stinging Nettle (Red Admiral, question marks), parsley (eastern swallowtail), passion flower (fritillaries), Queen Anne’s lace (Eastern black swallowtail), black snakeroot (Spring azure), Spicebush (spicebush swallowtail), thistle (painted ladies and cresentspots), tick trefoil (Eastern tailed blue), turtleheads (Baltimores), violets (all of the fritillaries), Willow (Gray hairstreak, tiger swallowtail, red-spotted purples, and wisteria (silver-spotted skipper).

Allow any weeds to grow at least for a while to see if any butterflies land and feed on them. If they do, these plants are not weeds, at least to the thinking of the butterfly. Remember now that you cannot use insecticides as you will kill your butterflies.

Another thing to consider is the wind, which can be a problem for the lightweight butterflies. You may want to plant taller plants around the edge of your butterfly garden to serve as a wind break, and also use walls on buildings or even put in a butterfly wall.

Most people do not know that butterflies were originally called “flutterbys,” indicating their flights from flower to flower.

There can be two large problems in a butterfly garden — Japanese beetles and aphids. With Japanese beetles you will have to use a pheromone trap to attract the adults into the container and then kill them by squashing them. The aphids can be smothered in a liquid detergent and then flushed off the plants to the soil. If you neighbor uses any insecticide, it will be detrimental to your butterflies. But if you tell them what you are trying to do with the butterfly garden, most become interested to see what butterflies are coming into the area.

This story was originally published March 24, 2016 at 10:48 PM with the headline "How to attract butterflies to your yard."