Gardening is the most fun in the summer because everything is in bloom at this time of the year. In addition to flowers, butterflies also contribute to the richness of colour. Unfortunately, insects have had a hard time finding enough food in recent years. Both humans and animals benefit from fragrant, flowering plants.
The summer lilac is not called butterfly lilac for nothing
Useful plants for butterflies
anise hyssop
- Flowering time: late summer
- Habitat: Heat and drought tolerant
With its beautiful violet flowers, the aniseed hyssop is also ideal as a cut flower. Do you often have small game visiting your garden? Don't worry, rabbits and deer won't eat the flower.
Buddleia
- Flowering time: all summer long
- Flower color: blue, purple or white
The summer lilac is rightly called the butterfly bush. Its intense smell promises the industrious folds a high yield of nectar. Anyone who loves butterflies cannot avoid this shrub. Hardly any other plant attracts so many insects into the garden.
Orange Milkweed
- Flowering period: June to September
- Flower color: orange
The orange silk flower is popular with butterflies of all stages of development. While the adult moths suck the nectar from the flowers, the caterpillars eat their fill of the leaves. Above all, the monarch butterfly feels magically attracted to the plant.
Verbena
- Flowering period: May to October
- Flower color: purple
Butterflies and gardeners alike enjoy the small, delicate flowers of verbena. Butterflies primarily visit the plant as a source of nectar. The gardener uses the plant as a decorative element in bouquets, as it makes a wonderful cut flower. You don't have to worry about robbing the butterflies of an important source of food by cutting the flowers. A pruning promotes budding, so that people and animals benefit.
water dost
- Flowering period: July to September
- Flower color: light pink
With a proud growth height of up to six meters, the Wasserdost takes up a lot of space in the garden and is therefore well suited to filling gaps in the hedge. This extent blows up your garden? But you don't have to do without visiting butterflies. In the trade you will also find the Wasserdost as a small specimen.
bronze fennel
- Flowering period: June to August
- Flower color: yellow
The bronze fennel impresses more with its filigree foliage than with a colorful flower. Nevertheless, butterflies like to look for the imposing growth - especially the swallowtail.
General note: In order to attract many butterflies to the garden, you should avoid cultivated shrubs. These usually have so-called double flowers, which look beautiful but contain hardly any nectar pollen.