If you plant for butterflies, you should expect to see caterpillars too. There is still time this year to fill the gaps in your landscape with plants that attract butterflies. It is a great way to add color and a variety of foliage to your garden while drawing in wildlife. Many plants that do well in this area serve as a nectar source for butterflies. Try adding purple coneflower, calendula, coreopsis, firespike, tropical sage or members of the cassia family to your mixed butterfly border. For best effect, plant in groups of three or five. And plan your butterfly border with plants that grow to different heights. That is important if you want to attract a variety of wildlife.
Some plants are hosts to the larva of specific butterflies. The one with which we are most familiar is milkweed. It serves a nectar plant for the monarch butterfly, but is also a food sourcefor the caterpillar that will comprise the next generation of monarchs. Monarch butterflies will also visit other flowering plants in your garden for nectar, but they deposit their eggs on milkweed plants. The voracious, striped monarch caterpillars are colorful and grow rapidly.
They only eat milkweed. From time to time the milkweed plants will be completely defoliated. But don’t worry. They will bounce back with more leaves and flowers in a short period of time.
Interplant milkweed with other flowering or foliage plants and you won’t be bothered that they are bare. In fact, when they do become leafless, you will know that you have been successful in providing a food source for a garden treasure.
Less familiar and underused selections for butterfly gardens are the cassias. Two good choices are candlestick bush (Senna alata) and butterfly bush or Christmas senna (Senna bicapsularis).
There are less desirable, invasive look-alikes, so be sure what you are buying. The suitable varieties grow into large shrubs. Hernando County is at the northern end of their growing range (Zone 9). If freeze damage should occur, don’t cut back damaged branches until spring. New growth will flush out after trimming. Cassias flower in the fall and are hosts to three different species of sulpher butterflies that resemble their bright yellow blossoms. Another advantage of cassias is that they provide visual interest in your landscape because they are taller than other flowering plants.
If you have questions about butterfly gardening or other lawn or landscape topics, feel free to contact UF/IFAS Extension in Hernando County at 352-754- 4433.