From Our Blog
First, before you go attracting butterflies and other pollinators to your garden, it would be a really great idea to read Paulette and Regina’s excellent article Neonicotinoids and the Insect Apocalypse. We don’t want to be luring these precious beauties to our garden’s only to accidentally kill them.
And follow that up with Regina’s Are Cultivars Bad Nectar Sources? and How to support your local caterpillars and then Stewart’s Native Larval and Nectar Plants.
That should give you some good food for thought.
A Very Good Book
If you’re ready for more in depth, there’s nothing like a good book, and I have found Gardening for Butterflies from the Xerces Society to be very good.
More….
Here are some more articles that Carolyn has curated that hone in to our PNW area and have some really good information on natives and host plants.
Puget Sound Butterflies and their Food Plants
Common Butterflies of the Puget Sound Region and Their Food Plants
Pacific Lowland Plants for Pollinators
WDFW Butterflies and How To Attract Them
Monarch Butterfly Nectar Plant List for Conservation Plantings
Your Garden
I hope you found a lot of good ideas from all these sources to help you have the Butterfly Garden you are dreaming of, even if like Tom, it only consists of a butterfly bush.
And you might want to join NABA’s Butterfly Garden Certification Program, that promotes the creation and conservation of butterfly habitats through the use of native plants.
