Butterfly Garden

Plant a Butterfly Garden This Spring!

Create a habitat for butterflies in your backyard or at your school. It's easy, and you will have fun watching and documenting the various butterfly species that come to your garden. You may even get hummingbirds!

Getting started:

Select a planting area

It's best to select an area in the yard that has good soil and is located in the sun. If you live in an apartment or a place where you cannot plant in the ground, you can plant your butterfly garden in a window box or large pot.

Map your garden on paper
After you choose the site, measure the area and sketch out a garden plan. Select and arrange the plants in groups according to their heights and the amount of space they each need.

Select your plants
The best flowers for a butterfly garden are those that flower for a long period of time, are fragrant, grow in colorful clumps, and have large petals or blossoms that provide easy access to their nectar that the butterlies eat. Following is a list of Butterfly Plants that you can choose from.

Butterfly Plants

Shrubs

Chokecherry
Butterfly bush

Viburnum
Japanese Wisteria

Lilac
Spirea

Perennials
(These perennials are native Iowa plants)

Purple Coneflower
Butterfly weed
Blazing Star

Black-eyed Susan
Coreopsis
Columbine

Yarrow
Liatris
Daylily

Annuals

Impatiens
Cosmos
Petunia
Marigold

Lobelia
Foxglove
Wild Ginger
Snapdragon

Verbena
Bee Balm
Strawberry
Bellflower

Tips on attracting butterflies to your garden

Provide damp areas in your garden - Butterflies cannot drink from open water sources so moist sand, earth, or mud provide the best watering holes.

Place stones or boards for butterflies to perch on when sunning. Butterflies are cold-blooded, so the sun helps them stay warm.

Do not use pesticides around your garden. The poison that kills insect pests will also kill butterflies.

Allow small, unused areas to grow up with weeds necessary for healthy butterfly caterpillars.

Plant gardens in an area that is protected from the wind - against a building or a stand of bushes.

Don't forget to water your garden regularly - especially the first few weeks after planting and when there are dry spells.

Field Journal Activity
Start a butterfly journal to identify the butterflies that visit your garden. You'll need a notebook and something to write and draw with. Then, when butterflies start visiting your garden, sit and watch them. Ask the following questions and make notes of the answers in your journal.

Which flowers attract most of the butterflies?
Can you identify the different types of butterflies? If not, sketch them and do some research to find out what species they are and what their characteristics are.
What time of day do you see the most butterflies?
What other insects did you observe in the garden?