High Country Horticulture

Everyone welcomes butterflies to their gardens. As a Wildlife Master for Colorado State Extension and a Habitat Steward for the National Wildlife Federation, I have never been asked how to rid a garden of butterflies! So attracted are people to butterflies that, according to a recent news article, during a TV ad for the sleep aid Lunestra, viewers are being hypnotized by a butterfly flittering across the screen thus not hearing a long list of side effects. And although some very beautiful butterflies can cause crop and forest damage, butterflies are much sought-after garden visitors and inhabitants.

Most gardeners can attract adult butterflies simply by planting colorful, fragrant flowers in a sunny location. Butterflies feed in open sunny spaces. They sit on flowers while they dine. Butterfly tarsi (feet) possess a sense similar to taste. Sweet nectar causes the proboscis to uncoil to take in nourishment.

Flowers with daisy- like flat tops or ones that are closely clustered provide the best seats. Many native plants and ornamentals that do well in our mountain gardens are excellent for attracting butterflies. Zinnias, buddleia (butterfly bush), verbenas, lilacs, blue mist spirea, asclepias, (milkweed or butterfly weed), mints, sunflowers, sages, native blue flax, native thistles and rabbitbrush are just a few butterfly-attracting plants.

If you provide a variety of these plants in a sunny spot, butterflies will come. Getting them to stick around and reproduce in your garden takes more habitat planning, but is still relatively easy for the mountain gardener.

Butterflies do more than flit from plant to plant looking for the best food on your garden buffet. Your garden needs to contain other features that will support other activities.

Butterflies need flat rocks where they can rest and sunbathe. They need wallows of sand and mud where they can hang out and cool off. They need protection against the wind and roosting places when the temperature drops below 60 degrees such as log piles, snags, tall grasses, shrubs and rocks. If you do not have these life-supporting features in or near to your garden , they will flutter on to better habitat.

In the right habitat, they stick around and do what comes naturally. However, female butterflies are amazingly selective about where they lay their eggs, perhaps because their offspring are very picky eaters.

Plants that are the food of choice for the adult butterfly will not sustain it during other phases of its life cycle. Eggs are laid only the specific host plants young caterpillars will eat. Different species of butterflies need different host plants.

The Monarch needs native asclepias as a host plant. Two species of asclepias do rather well in our mountain gardens . Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed) grows well in dry gardens with a sunny exposure.

Asclepias speciosa (showy milkweed) can tolerate cold better but needs more moisture. American Painted Lady larva feed on thistles, hollyhocks, sunflowers and related plants. Black swallowtails lay eggs on plants such as dill, parsley and fennel. Western tiger swallowtail caterpillars need plants such as willow or chokecherry. (Visit the CSU extension website for a chart that lists the larva food and adult nectar plants of common Colorado butterflies.)

To be successful in attracting andretaining butterflies, do not use insecticides in or around your garden. Even benign insecticides such as bacillus thuringiensis are lethal to caterpillars. Adult butterflies can also be killed by resting on insecticide treated surfaces. Flower gardens, left alone, will almost always work out their pest problems.