How to Attract Butterflies & Birds to your yard.
To make your backyard a sanctuary for butterflies and birds, provide the essentials: food, water, shelter and nesting area. Also, butterflies enjoy nectar from native plants and flowers, while birds generally prefer a landscape rich in trees and shrubs that provide nuts, berries and seeds.
We will list a variety of different plants for you to consider adding to your garden this Fall to produce the results of more birds and butterflies. Attracting butterflies to your garden each summer with a collection of nectar-rich perennials. Plants that attract butterflies are usually beneficial to other pollinators such as honeybees.
Attracting Butterflies is easy with these plants:
Agastache: Giant-Hyssop, Anise-Hyssop, Hummingbird Mint. A. foeniculum x rugosa 'Blue Fortune' is particularly attractive and easy to grow. The orange-flowered hummingbird-attracting southwestern/Mexican species usually die out after a year or two, but perform well as annuals.
Asclepias: Milkweed. The best native species for attracting butterflies in early summer, tied with Apocynum (Dogbane). Asclepias syriaca is the caterpillar host plant for Monarch.
Aster: Many different species are good for butterflies. One favorite of mine is the Climbing Aster (Aster carolinianus), a deciduous shrub that is covered with large fragrant blooms late in the fall, continuing well after frost. I have 10' tall one leaning on a telephone pole guy wire with Carolina Yellow-Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) and Morning-Glory (Ipomoea tricolor 'Heavenly Blue') for support. Other Asters are perennials that die back to the ground every winter. Asters are also host plants for Pearl Crescent.
Buddleja davidii: Butterfly Bush. This long-blooming hardy shrub is the #1 butterfly magnet. Many different cultivars are available - most do well, but I don't recommend the white and yellow cultivars. Other Buddleja species are also great, but B. davidii is the best in our experience. They will lay their eggs on it. Also enjoyed by hummingbirds. Nursery catalogs often spell the genus "Buddleia", which is incorrect. Buddleja davidii rarely escapes from cultivation here, but in other areas it can be a noxious weed. . It's a prolific bloomer from spring all the way until fall.
Common Buttonbush: An excellent native shrub for pond margins and other sunny wet areas. In summer it's covered with white balls of flower clusters, which are usually covered with butterflies.
Clethra alnifolia: Coastal Sweet-Pepperbush. One of the best native ornamental deciduous shrubs. Blooms in summer, with very fragrant flowers.
Coreopsis: or Tickseed. Many great native species to choose from.
Cepheid: Mexican False Heather, Mexican Cigar Plant, waxweed. Several species, mostly from Mexico, are attractive ornamentals and also super butterfly attracters. Bears no resemblance to heather, despite one common name. Some species also attract hummingbirds.
Day lilies: There are many kinds of day lillies, the Stella De Ora dwarf day lily, which blooms in late spring and early summer is always a winner.
Echinacea: Purple Coneflower. E. purpurea is one of the best - right up there with Butterfly Milkweed. The rare native Smooth Coneflower (Echinacea laevigata) is also worth planting.
Eupatorium: Joe Pye Weed, Boneset. Joe Pye Weeds (several species) are tall perennials especially loved by large butterflies, such as swallowtails.
Fennel: This one plant attracts the black swallow tail butterfly. You get a full life cycle from eggs all the way to the hatching just from one plant. It’s important to have a HOST PLANT: Host plants are the nurseries of the garden. If you keep an eye out you’ll see the female as she flits around the plant, gently laying her next brood’s eggs, sometimes on the top of leaves but usually on the bottom, hidden from predators. – We’ll share more information on Host Plants so keep reading. Along with many other herbs are great to encourage butterflies to your garden. Like Bee Balm, Borage, Catnip Chives, Dill, Hyssop, Lavender, Lemon Balm, a wide variety of Mints, Oregano, Parsley, Sweet Marjoram, Thymes and Winter Savory.
Lantana: Hedgeflower, Shrub-Verbena. Lantanas are super butterfly magnets, especially for skippers, and are also used by hummingbirds. The most magnetic seem to be the yellow ones. Most Lantanas are not hardy here, but a few, such as 'Miss Huff', are hardy in zone 7. If you have young children, be sure to get a cultivar, such as 'Miss Huff,' that does not produce fruits - they are beautiful, but poisonous. It's a perennial plant that come back from year to year. It blooms in late spring and all summer long until the first frost. Birds, like blue jays and mocking birds, will eat the seeds as well.
Milkweed (A. tuberosa) and Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) are some of our favorites.
Penta: They come in white, purple, red, pink and is another wonderful plant for butterflies and hummingbirds.
Salvia Sage. Smaller-flowered Salvias are good for butterflies. Good perennials include the Texan S. farinacea (Mealy-cup Sage), hybrid S. 'Indigo Spires', and several European species such as S. x superba. The large-flowered Salvias that attract hummingbirds are good for attracting large late fall butterflies, such as Cloudless Sulphurs. Salvia guaranitica is particularly highly recommended because it's so reliable and easy to grow.
Weeds like Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), White Clover (Trifolium repens), and Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) are good butterfly plants. If you want to attract butterflies, you should not have one of the sterile "chemlawns" that are so popular nowadays. Let your yard or at least an certain area of your yard go native.
Host plants range from flowering plants like Milkweed and Passion Vine, to herbs like Fennel, to bushes as well as trees like
Sweet Bay Magnolia.
Flowers: Aster (Aster spp.) Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) Coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) False Nettle (Boehmeria cylindrica) Hollyhock (Alcea rosea) Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja spp.) Mallow (Malva spp.) Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) Pussy-toe (Antennaria plantaginifolia) Rue (Ruta graveolens) Ruellia (Ruellia spp.) Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum spp.) Silver Brocade (Artemisia stellariana) Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus) Spider flower (Cleome hasslerana) Sunflower (Helianthus spp.) Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) Swamp Verbena (Verbena hastata) Tall Verbena (Verbena bonariensis) Violet (Viola spp. ) Water Dock (Rumex verticillatus) Wild Senna (Senna hebecarpa) Woodland Stonecrop (Sedum ternatum)
Herbs: Dill (Antheum graveolens) Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)
You can also plant different grasses, shrubs, vines and trees as host plants. We discuss these in another blog at a future date.
Some favorite plants birds like to eat and nest in:
Seed and berry producing plants are essential food sources for many bird species. Native plants are particularly well suited to our climate and our native birds. A few commonly available native plants appropriate for home landscapes that produce seeds and berries that birds favor include beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus), eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), dogwood (Cornus florida), wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera), river birch (Betula nigra), southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora), oaks and pines.
Native perennials that produce seeds for birds include black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia fulgida), purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), ‘Fireworks’ goldenrod (Solidago rugosa), tickseed (Coreopsis species), swamp sunflower (Helianthus angustifolius), aromatic aster (Aster oblongifolius) and panic grass (Panicum virgatum). To benefit birds, do not cut these perennials back in fall. Instead wait to cut them back in early spring to allow birds to feed on their seeds over winter. Evergreen plants, such as wax myrtle, yaupon (Ilex vomitoria), inkberry (Ilex glabra), and American holly (Ilex opaca), provide shelter from wind and rain and should be included in any wildlife habitat planting.
To produce the best habitat, include a variety of plants with different elevations, flowering times, and growth practices. Since different types of birds favor to nest at different heights, planting layers of groundcovers, shrubs, small trees and large trees will allow many different kinds of birds to live in the same horizontal space. Varied plantings also ensure a wide range of food is available throughout the year when different bird species are present. Some birds, such as indigo buntings, scarlet tanagers, and orchard orioles, only visit our area for a portion of the year and are known as migratory class. Others, known as resident species, live here year round and include cardinals, bluebirds, and chickadees. Planting evergreen trees and shrubs like holly or cedar is particularly important for resident birds that need places to shelter from weather and predators in winter. Here are just a few more that work well in North Carolina.
Leatherleaf Mahonia: It has berries the birds like, and a little later in the year, it will blossom. It's multicolor, and it will get six to eight feet large.
Nandina: It has white blossoms and the red berries that birds enjoy.
Ardisia: Also known as Christmas Berry, it's an evergreen with sword shaped leaves. It lives a long time and gets rather large.
Viburnum: An evergreen that birds like to use for shelter.
Hummingbird Mint: This plant has tri-colored, trumpet-shaped blossoms that attract hummingbirds.
Turks Cap: A perennial with tubular-shaped, red flowers that attract hummingbirds. They bloom all summer and get six to eight feet tall.
Since birds also like to eat seeds, seed producing plants are great at bringing birds to your garden. For seed eaters, we Maples and Magnolia trees are a great idea. Here are only afew of the favorites:
Little Gem Magnolia: It's hybridized for the homeowner so it only gets about 15 feet wide and 25 feet tall so you can put it in smaller spaces, but the bloom size is still large.
Sunflower: When the flower starts dying it produces seed, which the bird loves. Sunflower seeds are found in premium bird seed mix, but if you don't want to buy the bird seed, they are so easy to grow. Mammoth sunflowers get up to 8 feet tall. Put three seeds in a hole one inch deep and in three months, you have sunflowers.
Various insects (like caterpillars) are also an important food source for baby birds, instead of spraying pesticides, allow birds and other beneficials to control insect pests. Insects and spiders are especially important to young songbirds born in spring and summer because these foods fill the birds’ protein and calcium requirements for bone and tissue growth.
Create a balanced ecosystem where good insects, birds, and other beneficials keep plant-damaging insect populations in check naturally.
Pesticides kill both good and bad insects, removing a valuable nutrient source from the food chain.
We'll have more information to share in upcoming BLOGS
