A mix of annual & perennial blooming plants can create a gorgeous and functional garden for pollinators such as Butterflies. Whether you create a garden dedicated to feeding pollinators throughout the Spring-Fall season or you add a few into your existing landscape – here is a list of our favorites for our zone 6-7 range:
Perennials
- Butterfly Bush (Buddleia) come in a wide variety of colors and can be taller and sprawling down to shorter and more compact. They are easy to care for and are a huge attractant for butterflies!
- Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is probably the most well-known Butterfly plant for it’s benefits as a host plant to Monarch butterflies. They can be slower to emerge in the Spring to make a mark in your garden before winter and don’t panic and dig them up early thinking they didn’t survive the Winter.
- Coneflowers not only add bright color to the landscape and make a great plant to back up lower growing perennials. Bonus – Echinacea purpurea (the purple coneflower you often see growing on the side of the roads or in fields) are native to our area and make a terrific source of food for birds & pollinators.
- Joe Pye Weed is a tall and unique native plant that attracts butterflies and is great for tall interest in the landscape. It is a later bloomer which gives you color when some other perennials have already faded.
- Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) is also a great native perennial with showy flowers that bloom at length in the summer. Butterflies love it and it’s bright yellow blooms!
- Lavender is a well-known “herb” with beautiful purple flowers in summer. Butterflies love them but check the label on your variety to make sure it is hardy in our area. Some varieties of Lavender will not be hardy throughout the winter.
- Salvia has fragrant foliage and blooms and is a big butterfly & bee attractant. Salvia “May Night” is a super easy to grow hardy variety that butterflies love in my yard.
- Goldenrod has bright yellow flowers that bloom later in summer. A great naturalizing plant.
Annuals
- Lantana is a heat tolerant summer flower that makes a bright show of flowers all summer long. You can find Lantana in colors ranging from white to yellow and even multicolored! Lantana is a great flower to draw pollinators in. Plus, once established they are drought tolerant.
- Lavender -see in perennials above – also comes in varieties that are beautiful and smell wonderful but are not as hardy and are usually grown as a seasonal accent plant.
- Sunflowers not only make a great pollinator plant (bees love them!) but the seed heads provide a snack for birds. Sunflowers are available from mammoth varieties over 8′ tall to short varieties under 3′.
- Salvia (see above in perennials) also comes in quite a few varieties that are not hardy in our area but make a gorgeous addition to planters and seasonal landscapes.
- Cosmos give interest with their fine feathery foliage and bright blooms.
- Petunias come in a huge variety of colors and the brightly colored fuschia and red ones are more likely to also attract hummingbirds. Petunias make great filler or spiller plants in a container or massed them together in the landscape for a dramatic swatch of color.
- Borage is an edible (research all herbs before ingesting) herb that also has unique flowers that attract pollinators. We love Borage in the garden!
- African Daisies (Osteospermum) are a beautiful daisy like bloom that butterflies and bees love.
- Alyssum is a trailing plant with small flowers that scent attracts bees & butterflies.
- Zinnia is a colorful additon to the flower garden, as well. Prone to mildew so space them apart when planting.