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May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun
And find your shoulder to light on,
To bring you luck, happiness and riches
Today, tomorrow and beyond.

An Irish Blessing

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A garden filled with beautiful, nectar rich flowers will attract butterflies to your yard. Butterflies require much smaller amounts of nectar than do hummingbirds, so any flower that is used by hummingbirds will be used by butterflies. Butterflies like flat-topped, composite flowers that are easy to sit on. A rule of thumb when choosing nectar plants for the butterfly garden is to stick to native and "old-fashioned" imported plants. Most of the newer, showy hybrid plants were bred for color or flower size, not nectar content as Mother Nature intended, so most have very little nectar.

Some of our favorite butterfly nectar plants are Zinnas, Coreopsis, Marigolds, Cypress Vine, Red Morning Glory, Day Lilies, Irises, Butterfly Bush, Turk's Cap, Phlox, Black Eyed Susans and other members of the Rudbeckia family, Salvia, Tithonia, Azaleas, Mist Flower, Pickerel-weed, Lantana, Jamaican Vervain and wild Asters.

Besides plenty of nectar plants for the adults and host plants for the caterpillars, there are some other important elements that should be present in the Butterfly Garden.

Shelter from the Wind is important because a butterfly's wings are fragile. A fence or group of evergreen shrubs that form a wind break on the north side of the garden will be appreciated by the butterflies. It will also help to reduce energy costs in winter.

A Shallow Water Feature or Boggy Area with a sandy or muddy bottom for those butterflies that like to "puddle".

Large Rocks for basking in the sun. Because butterflies are cold-blooded creatures, they need to warm up in the sun on cool spring mornings.

A Compost Pile or Over Ripe Fruit will be appreciated by some kinds of butterflies like Snout-nosed and Red-spotted Purple.

While beautiful nectar rich flowers planted in large groups will attract butterflies to your garden, just that alone is not enough to keep them there. The most important plants in a butterfly garden are those "weeds", herbs, shrubs and trees that provide food for butterfly larvae. Many of these host plants have beautiful flowers. Some examples are Passion Vine, the viola (Violet) family, snapdragons and False Foxglove. Most plants that are used by butterfly larvae and other insects are native to the United States. Many scientists believe that the increase in alien (imported) plants directly affects the decline of butterflies and other insects because most of the alien plants can not be eaten by these insects. This, in turn, affects the number of birds and other animals that an area can support; when the insects leave or die out, the birds move to another area where insects are prevalent.

Planting native perennials, shrubs and trees will have many positive effects on your yard. In addition to providing food for beautiful butterflies, natives will improve the soil, help conserve water, alleviate flooding, save money and decrease pollution. If you are concerned about the holes that the larvae make in the leaves, then hide the host plants away in a back corner.

As with other wildlife gardening, pesticides of all kinds are prohibited. Bacillus thuringiensis should definitely not be used anywhere in a butterfly garden. This bacillus attacks caterpillars, the larval stage of butterflies and moths. It does not discriminate between a cabbage loper and a Tiger Swallowtail.

Here are some butterflies common to Southeastern Louisiana and some of their larval food plants.

• Eastern Tiger (Papilia glaucus) - Leaves of Cottonwood, Tulip Tree, Sweet bay, Cherry and others



• Zebra (Eurytides marcellus) - Paw Paw
• Pipevine (Battus philenor) - Pipevines
• Spicebush (Papilio troilus) - Spicebush, sassafras & other laurels



• Black (Papilio polyxenes) - Parsley family (dill, fennel, carrots, both cultivated and wild)



The Life Cycle of the
Black Swallowtail Butterfly





• Palamedes (Papilio palamedes) - Red bay & other laurels



• Giant (Papilio cresphontes) - Citrus, wild lime, hop tree & other citrus relatives



The Life Cycle of the
Giant Swallowtail Butterfly

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The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.

Attributed to George Carlin

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Whites and Sulphurs

• Cabbage White (Pieris rapae) - Cabbage, nasturtium, watercress, various capers and mustards
• Checkered White (Pontia protodice) - Many native and exotic mustards
• Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae), Little Yellow (Eurema lisa), Sleepy Orange (Eurema nicippe) - Senna (Cassia family)
• Southern Dogface (Colias eurydice) & Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) - Indigo Bush, clovers & other legumes

Hairstreaks

• Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) - Flowering parts of legumes, mallows and other plants
• White M Hairstreak (Parrhasius m-album) - Oaks

Blues and Azures

• Eastern Tiled-blue (Everes comyntas) - Flowers and seeds of many legumes
• Spring Azure Complex (Celastrina ladon) and "Summer" Azure (Celastrina ladon neglecta) - Flowering parts of many plants

Longwings and Fritillaries

• Zebra Longwing (Heliconius charithonia) Occasional visitor - Passion Vines
• Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) - Passion Vines (including the wild tiny yellow flowered Passiflora lutea L.)
• Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) - Passion vine, flax and viola family

The Folsom Native Plant Society has a good page about growing Passion Vine.

The Life Cycle of the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly

• Pearl Crescent (Pyciodes tharos) - Asters



• Question Mark (Polygonia interrogationis) and Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma) - Hops, nettles, elms & hackberries



• Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) - Willows, cottonwoods, elms, birches & hackberries
• Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) - Nettles and false nettles



• American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis) and Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) - Thistle and mallows



• Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) - Plantains, snapdragons and False Foxglove



• Red Spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis (in part)) - Willows, cottonwoods and poplars



• Viceroy (Limenitis archippus) - Willows, sometimes poplars and others
• Emperors (Asterocampa spp) and Snouts (Libytheana spp.) - Hackberries
• Monarch (Danaus plexippus) and Queen (Danaus gilipus) - Milkweeds

Satyrs, Wood-Nymphs, Browns & Pearly-eyes - Grasses

Skippers

• Silver-spotted - Locusts, wisteria & legumes
• Long-Tailed & Cloudy wings - Legumes, especially beans
• Common Checkered Skipper - Mallow Family
• Grass Skippers (Fiery Skipper & others) - Bermuda grass & other grasses
• Brazilian - Cannas

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I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! Indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! - not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"

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We love to take photographs and draw and paint the natural world so we put together some products on Zazzle. Here are a few examples:

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Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine.

Jeffrey Glassberg

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